


The Greater Tadfield Friends Of Music Autumn Concert

by CopperBeech



Series: The Squire's Wife [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Bassoonist Aziraphale, Coming Untouched, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Dom/sub, Domestic Fluff, Don't copy to another site, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Kiss, Flautist Crowley, French Hornist Gabriel, Gay Bar, Gentle Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Implied Anal Sex, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, Light Angst, Light Bondage, Lower Tadfield (Good Omens), M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mild Smut, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Rocky Horror Picture Show References, Savoy Operas, Sub Crowley (Good Omens), amateur orchestra, fake marriage but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Anthony Crowley, marketing consultant and competent amateur flautist, finds he can at least flee the smoke and congestion of London if not the golden handcuffs of his job. He’s got no personal life to leave behind; he likes things anonymous, and rough, and even a little dangerous, and far enough from home that he won’t have to deal with entanglements. So what’s he doing obsessing about a mannerly, daintily groomed, kindly man who he’s not even sure is gay? And how’s he going to cope with a hotbed of gossip, a lovelorn tubist serenading the witch next door, and an irascible music director with a Black Belt in baton-throwing?
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Sergeant Shadwell/Madame Tracy (Good Omens)
Series: The Squire's Wife [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079246
Comments: 572
Kudos: 213
Collections: Good Omens Human AUs





	1. Tuning Up

**Author's Note:**

> A deliberately fluffy, silly, preposterous AU to balance the angst and emotion of my first shot at the form (though because it's me, there is some Serious Stuff [tm] ). Barely earns the Explicit Rating, but features a solid helping of Copper's Signature Between The Lines Smut. Virtual Prize for readers who spot the deliberate parallels with [Ethical Considerations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163664/chapters/63661237).
> 
> This started out during a Tumblr chin-wag about tagging with @summerofspock who liked the amateur orchestra idea, and there was much hilarity about the size of instruments and fingering and so on, and while the end product is a bit more dignified, I needed that conversation. 
> 
> All Musician Bullshit is taken from my own store.

_Welcome to the first Autumn 2020 rehearsal of the Greater Tadfield Friends of Music!!_

_If you are new to the group, please be sure our Secretary, Tracy Potts, has your contact information so that she can schedule you for an audition. Auditions will be held in the evenings of the upcoming week and determine placement within your section._

_We’re excited about a line-up of great music including Wagner, Sir Arthur Sullivan, the Strauss brothers, Offenbach, and hopefully some small ensemble works. The Tadfield Secondary School chorus will be performing with us, and Mrs. Potts will accompany their lead soprano in the Barcarolle from_ Tales of Hoffmann.

_There will be a short reception with refreshments after the rehearsal. Please stay and get acquainted or renew old acquaintances! Nibbles will be provided by the Ladies’ Beneficial Society of Greater Tadfield._

“Well, they _said_ they’d be here at eight. I know, it’s still early – pass me that carrier, there’s a love. You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Anthony Crowley. Flute.”

“Welcome to Tadfield. Deirdre Young.” In a conspiratorial whisper: “And not a minute too soon. Just between you and me – Gemma and Lucinda are hopeless, only we can’t let them know we think that. Paper cups, Trace?”

“Oh! Dear, I didn’t – wait, here. Are you sure it was the right decision? What an absolute _Tartar.”_

“Well, it was that or the mousy little man from Stow-on-the-Wold. The children would have eaten him _alive.”_

Apparently ritual cannibalism was a juvenile rite of passage in his new home of Tadfield. There had been nothing about this in the gazetteer, but it seemed like a natural progression from his own school years.

“Wet your whistle, lad?”

The speaker was grizzled, leathery, reeked of stale tobacco, and carried an instrument case in the distinctive blunderbuss shape of a euphonium. The other hand extended a tarnished hip flask.

“Ah… no. Not before rehearsal.”

“Suit yerself, laddie. Ah canna manage wi’oot it.”

“I’ll have a bit of that, Mr. Shadwell.”

“Ha’ ye no shame, ye painted hussy?” He did, however, pass the flask over. The hennaed woman fussing over the refreshments table took a grateful sip, though Crowley could see her eyes widen.

“Put that away, Rob, you know we’re not meant to have liquor on school grounds.”

“Ah, just go warm up me Thundergun, then.”

Crowley noticed that he continued to take brief nips as he put the euphonium through its paces.

It had seemed like a way to meet people, without really having to deal with them too personally. He hadn’t expected the flood of memories brought back by this weirdly stale-smelling, dusty rehearsal room; boys at Secondary generally came in for a lot of piss-taking if the instrument they played wasn’t _manly_ (drums, trombone, saxophone, tuba), though compared to the other things he’d endured for not being _manly,_ it was just another minor indignity.

“New ‘ere?”

The speaker was a shabby man, even more unkempt and redolent than Shadwell – in London, you might have taken him for one of the homeless people who begged and busked near the Tube entrances: strawy hair jaw-length and uncombed, face pocked with old acne scars, giving off a faint hogo of decay and formalin.

He extended a hand. It _looked_ clean. Tentatively, Crowley shook it.

“Anthony Crowley. Just moved into Nasturtium Cottage.” It had been the most impulsive purchase of his life: he’d just taken the Bentley out to open her up on the rural roads, London was nothing but gridlock and citations and prangs, and there the place had been with the sign out front. Perfect light, right price, a garden where he’d finally have room for more plants than would fit on his south-facing wall. He’d written a cheque on the spot.

“Ah, I heard someone’d taken the Nasty place. Mind you, the drains’re a bit dodgy, ‘less the estate agent got’em sorted. Harv Hastur, second chair horn, herd kids for a livin’. Flash, en’t’ye?”

Presumably this referred to Crowley’s silk shirt and silver chain, the slightly iridescent gray scarf knotted low on his chest; the ginger hair half in a bun, half shoulder length, the snakeskin boots. He considered that his London look might be a little out of place here.

“See you met Rob Shadwell – sits behind us an’ empties his clam trap down me collar, the bastard – there’s Newt Pulsifer on the tuba, always looks surprised when a note comes out. Ana Device, ever notice how it’s always the weirdos as picks the oboe? She’s in Jasmine Cottage, not far up from you, it’s the garden wi’ all the Moon thingys and sparkly shite. An’ _this_ here’s – “

Crowley had seen and scorned the cornball movie scenes where someone met Someone and the music swelled and the action hung fire and possibly glitter sifted down over the screen.

Oh, _hell._

He was several years older than Crowley – though that might have just been the near whiteness of his fluffy blond hair – and dressed with the conscious eccentricity of someone adopting the role of a squire or landowner from anything up to a century back. He might have walked right out of Wilkie Collins or Charles Dickens, except for the incongruous tartan bow tie at the collar of his crosswoven blue shirt.

His eyes were the blustery blue of the day that had just passed, clouds racing past higher clouds above the early Fall colours, except that when he looked up they became first the blue-green of the ocean below the Sussex cliffs, then the clear blue of pale sapphires. His cheeks were as plump and pink-dusted as the little apples ripening on the tree in Crowley’s new back garden, and his lips had the accentuated cupid’s-bow that came with playing a double-reed instrument.

And he was looking at Crowley with the same faintly startled, open-mouthed expression that Crowley was desperately trying to expunge from his own face.

Completely oblivious to the alarm bells and panic buttons and glandular chaos behind what Crowley devoutly hoped was a composed façade, Hastur went on, “ – Izzy Fell, plays the fartin’ bedpost.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oops, ‘ere’s me mate,” said Hastur. “Ciao.”

“The bassoon,” said the older man, finding a smile and extending a hand. “And it’s Aziraphale.”

“I’ve never heard it called that.” What kind of a name was Aziraphale? Did it matter? It belonged to someone with eyes that you could drown in.

“Alas, it’s a received canard. Froggy has a double dose of brass player’s humour, I’m afraid. I have a theory about the rude noises they’re prone to make in the process of learning their instruments. Those who don’t find bodily functions amusing tend to be winnowed out, though of course there are exceptions.”

“Well – ah –– guess that makes sense.” It was, he realized, difficult to release the bassoonist’s grip. His hands were indecently soft and he smelled a little of bergamot and spice. “Froggy?”

“Mr. Hastur teaches biology, and Dr. Liguri there is the chemistry master, though he likes to call it _stinks._ They’re two-thirds of our horn section, when Liguri isn't having to double the trombones, and for my many sins, I sit directly in front of them. Even Gabriel can’t keep them under control.”

“The director?”

“No, one of the exceptions. First chair horn. A relation, I’m afraid, and quite talented, but just between us“ (Fell’s voice dropped, and the bastard’s eyes _twinkled,_ Crowley was going to be on the casualty list by the end of the evening), “don’t let him corner you about Wagner.”

“I’ll be very sure not to.”

All this time the ladylike white hands had been assembling the sections of a lovingly polished rosewood bassoon, seating the broad double reed on the S-curved mouthpiece. Crowley realized he was staring and stole another glance at the hornists instead. Liguri, now turned a little toward him, was dark-skinned but with startlingly pale eyes, the result of some sort of genetic bingo, and had what indeed looked like a chemical burn along one side of his face and the top of his right hand.

“The odd thing,” Fell went on, “is that they’re both quite clever, and both used to teach at the university level. Greater Tadfield Secondary is quite the fall from grace, but I suspect their mutual fondness for juvenile pranks played a part. I am fairly certain that they have everything to do with the rather saucy magazines that have been repeatedly slipped into Canon Crossley’s post box… But I fear I digress into the gossip of our little hamlet. It is our signature vice. Do tell me about yourself, Mr. – I’m sorry – ?”

“Crowley.”

“I shall remember you by your colour. You are quite the crow with midnight plumage. So, new to Tadfield?”

“Barely moved in. You can do ninety per cent of my job over the Internet, ‘n’ I decided I’d had all the London I could manage.”

“Dr. Johnson said that when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. I hope that would not be you.”

“Ah – no – just of the traffic jams. And the high rates.” And the cafes and clubs where he was always running into past hookups, if his eye wasn’t quick enough.

“What is it you do?”

“I lead people into temptation.”

“My dear chap. I had no idea that was a job description.”

“Well -- "

“Good evening, everyone.“

A loud blatt from off to his right, where the horn section was seated.

“It’s an absolute joy to see you all again. Arthur and I are very excited for the new season. The purchase of new scores and upgrades to some of the school’s instruments have been generously supported by the _Tadfield Advertiser,_ Curry’s Garage and of course, our reliable angel, Mr. Fell – “

A small ripple of applause. _Arthur_ appeared to be Mr. Young, and Crowley recognized him as the man he’d seen slipping out of the school’s side entrance pipe in hand, just as he was finishing the rare Player Blue he allowed himself now and again, to steady his nerves.

“As you know, Doctor Nicholas hasn’t been well since his fall in the beginning of the summer, and has taken early retirement – “

“Ah, I’ll miss Old Nick,” came Hastur’s voice.

“ – and the board is happy to announce the engagement of a new music instructor for the school _and_ our new director for at least the present year. Dr. Beatrice” (she pronounced it in four syllables, delicately, as if reading Dante) “Zingarelli’s credentials include second assistant director with the City of Birmingham Philharmonic and rehearsal coach for the New Chamber Youth Opera – “

“Wot’s she doin’ in Bumshag, Oxfordshire then?” Hastur could be heard saying, not quite privately enough.

“Same thing we are,” came a deep voice that was undoubtedly Dr. Liguri.

“ – specializes in choral music of the twentieth century – “

“ – gonna be fooken Britten all year long, ennit – “

“ – we will all be able to get better acquainted after the rehearsal, and I hope you’ll stay for the social hour – I’ve baked my _famous_ pear tart!”

(was that a _moan_ from the vicinity of the bassoon section? Crowley was going to go into some sort of spiritual whistle register any minute – )

“ – please welcome Dr. Beatrice Zingarelli.”

A small person he hadn’t spotted before – sporting a tailcoat that looked as if it had been slept in for twenty years, a shirt with stains down the front, and a severe case of something like eczema or rosacea –– swept up to the podium through a scatter of applause, raking the assembled musicians with a gaze that suggested an unimpressed customer at a fish market. The flat black hair hadn’t seen a brush in several days and the blue eyes were not sea or cloud or sky but the merciless blue of an unwinking LED. “Good evening. I will be your director this year – “

A murmur.

“You will address me as Maestro, not sir, nor ma’am. If you refer to me in the third person, I am they or them. Kindly respect this choice without question.” There was the faint lilt of an Italian accent.

“Yes, sir, and or ma’am,” murmured Hastur.

“Auditions, please report promptly ten minutes before your scheduled time. I have a great deal of preparation to do for the school year and do not appreciate having my time wasted.”

“Cuddly, too,” remarked Liguri. A hissed shush issued from the same general region.

“That being the case, we will start with the Wagner _Pilgerchor_.” The German accent was precise. “Ms. – Device, is it? If you will be so kind as to give the A.”

The oboist – Crowley took in only a waterfall of hair and another waterfall of blue skirt, and a pair of spectacles that suggested Emma Thompson’s Professor Trelawney – lifted her instrument and sounded the tuning note.

“We’re screwed,” he heard from the horn section, and in Dr. Liguri’s deeper voice, “D’they know we do this for _fun?”_ Followed by ” _Ssssssh."_

* * *

What the hell was he even _thinking_? Gossip aside, anything close to home wasn’t on. It was possibly his best reason for moving. _Been nice, gotta go. Drove down from Oxfordshire for the night life, back to work in the morning_. Anonymous, rough, maybe even a little dangerous, and over in one night. He didn’t do mischievous eyes, or cherub cheeks. It was ridiculous for him to be radar-tracking a soft-spoken, prim older man who might not even be gay but merely excessively British.

Conversation hummed around the Ladies’ Beneficial Society table, even though Tracy Potts had commandeered someone with piano skills and was warbling her heart out, lifting eyebrows roguishly at the euphonium player.

“Well, I think it’s all modern nonsense, this _they_ and _them_ business,” came a high-pitched, rather whiny voice from behind Crowley’s shoulder. This was one R. P. Tyler, whose entire function in the orchestra seemed to be playing the triangle. “But at least she – sorry, _they_ do manage to keep a little more _order_ than Dr. Nicholas _.”_

“I for one look forward to working with a more _rigorous_ director.” The first hornist was a walking alpha male display: casual muscularity, loud voice, American accent. He wore a tailored suit a shade lighter than Fell’s and, of all things, a heavy silk muffler in a shade of lavender so pale as to be almost grey, draped so casually that Crowley was fairly sure he’d spent several minutes on it.

“I see our resident diva has been properly primed,” said Fell at his elbow. “It usually only takes a small nip.”

The word _diva_ closed a circuit. “Tracy Potts, comin’ back to me, didn’t she have a season at Glyndebourne way back? And then there was some sort of a scandal?”

“A string of them. Old gossip, but always spicy.” It came back vaguely: something about a married stage director, and something else about a cabinet minister and a cane and a scanty leather Queen of the Night costume borrowed without permission from the current avant-garde production, and the image of a much younger Mrs. Potts (the Mrs. seemed to be a courtesy) plastered across the front of the _Star_ with a salacious leader. “The Friends of Music seem to welcome all the disgraced professionals. I imply nothing about present company, of course.”

“Or you, I hope.” _Jesus, stop flirting._

“Oh, no. I’m just a middle-aged dilettante with a philanthropic obligation. Like the Baron in _Ruddigore,_ I am compelled to do good works – well, I shan’t bore you.” Fell _twinkled_ again. “May I hope to see you for the chamber music rehearsal Tuesday? I’ve got a quintet setting of _Nessun Dorma_ I’ve been longing to work up, speaking of opera. War horse but within our powers, if you’ll help, and audiences eat it up.”

“Uh – sure.”

“We’ll _murder_ the _Iolanthe,_ of course, but Deirdre insisted on it – Just a moment. I must _seize_ the last of these.” Fell ducked past the oboist, who was exhorting one of the string players about the feng shui in the building, and scooped up the last of what seemed to be Mrs. Young’s _famous pear tarts._

He hadn’t been imagining it earlier. It was a moan.

“These are always _scrummy._ Did you get one?”

“Ah – no.” _I could try it off your fingers._ He needed to get out of here. “Well – better be getting on. Nothing’s unpacked really. Things to do before – ” _Oh fuck, don’t say bed._ “Turning in. When and where do you want me? I mean on Tuesday,” _see if you can fit the other foot in, just leave, you’re going on too little sleep –_

“Seven-thirty, right here. Time for a bit of tea – “ (he pronounced it _tay_ ) before getting down to it.”

_Yup, that sounds like the ticket, getting down to it._ “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Jolly good then.”

Tracy launched into Cherubino’s aria from _Figaro_ as he left. _First I freeze, and then I feel my soul catch fire, and in a moment I’m turned again to ice._

_Fuck._

* * *

It was too much to hope the nightmare wouldn’t follow him. It always started the same way, though it finished differently at different times. He was flying, as one does in dreams, in a vague starry sky that he somehow understood was the void of space and not just Earth’s atmosphere, and then no matter what he did his wings wouldn’t bear him, and a terrifying voice said something in a language he couldn’t understand and he was falling through the upper air, the long pinions at his shoulders bursting into flame with the heat of re-entry, not burning away but burning black, until everything around him was fire and the sick stomach-wrenching fall went on forever.

Sometimes he woke up then, sometimes he was being manhandled by unseen beings. This time they dragged him up in front of Dr. Zingarelli, who said, in a grave expressionless way that would only make sense in dreams: “Put him in the bathtub.” The invisible hands plunged him into a clawfoot tub, still wearing half his clothing, and the coolness of the water became a scalding burn, and he woke up shouting, feeling the saturation of the pillow under his neck and groping blindly on the other side of the bed for – whom? There was never anyone on the other side of the bed – and his heart was battering and those blue eyes were still gazing at him if he closed his own again, dead and judging.

The sky was barely grey as he dragged himself to the window. Looked down into his back garden at the vague shape of the apple tree.

“Welcome to Tadfield,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Zingarelli is a composite cameo of stories that survive about Arturo Toscanini and the opera impresario Sarah Caldwell; the merciless conductor of a regional orchestra I once performed with, and my high-school music director, an irascible and almost certainly queer woman whose aim with a loaded keychain, especially when the disruptive trombone section was involved, was ruthlessly accurate. You couldn't get away with it these days.
> 
> "Clam trap" is the industry term for the brass player’s "spit valve," which collects the condensation from breath and needs to be periodically emptied. It's a little gross.
> 
> There is, in fact, a pleasant Italian dialect insult "put your face (or arse) in the bathtub," carrying the general freight of Fuck You. I remember a cherubic Roman-Neopolitan pianist classmate who used to roll it out sonorously, though the only word I can recall clearly is the final _bagnarol_.


	2. No One Gets Any Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for a lighthearted remark that mildly stereotypes gay men or librarians, not quite sure which.

Saturday, it seemed, was market day. He’d seen several durable signs looped around fencerails in the village centre, reminding one and all that stalls opened at eight, and since nothing was going to come of his plans for a kitchen garden for a while yet, he rose early after a second sketchy night’s sleep and rolled the Bentley sedately as close to the open space around the War Memorial as he could get. Three boys and a girl on bicycles surrounded it before he could get his small store of carriers out of the boot.

“Wow, is this real?”

“It’s the Bentley R Type. They made them in the Fifties.” This was a bespectacled youth whom Crowley recognized after a moment as the other half of the bassoon section. He looked a bit like the boy in the Where’s Wally books, without the bobble hat.

“Don’t stand so close, Brian, you’ll drip on it.” Brian had made the wholesome selection of an ice cream for breakfast.

“Fascination with machinery is typical patriarchal materialism,” said the girl, whom Crowley also recognized from the string section.

“It _is_ an R-Type,” said Crowley, “and I restored it myself, and you’d be?”

“We,” said the blond boy who’d admonished Brian, “are the Them. I’m Adam, that’s Brian, this is Wensleydale, and – “

“Pippin Galadriel Moonchild,” said the girl gravely, “but everyone calls me Pepper.”

“There are none like us.”

“I see that.”

“You're Mr. Crowley. Saw you Thursday with the van in front of Nasturtium Cottage. No one stays there long, Mum says there’s something dodgy about the drains.”

“Well, I’ve bought it. So the drains’ll have to cease their Infernal mischief, won’t they?”

“What d’ye do, to afford a car like that?” Brian inclined to practical curiosity.

“I’m a marketing consultant.”

“What’s that?”

“It means I help my clients make people want things they don’t need and probably can’t afford. Or persuade them that something’s for their _convenience_ when it’s actually madly frustrating, like call queues.”

“Capitalism is the tool of the oppressor,” said Pepper.

“I know. I hate it too.”

“Why d’ye do it then?”

“I get to drive a Bentley R-series. So who’s got the best tomatoes and rocket?”

“Oh, that’ll be Bonners from up in Iffley. They’re here every two weeks.”

“Is that a _snake_ tattoo? Wicked." The last lover who’d lasted any time at all had made him get it – “to put my mark on you” – and dropped him before it healed.

“Oi, there’s Greasy and his lot. Race you to the old clubhouse.”

The audience was over, it seemed. Adam swung his leg over his bicycle and the other three pedaled off after him.

* * *

He spotted the waterfall of hair near the War Memorial, behind a table laden with incense, soap (the kind that was cut off a huge ingot, to your order), candles and a small selection of smudge bundles. _It’s always the weirdos as picks the oboe._

“Your aura is troubled,” she said without preamble as he approached the table. “I recommend rosemary or one of these flower essences. You’re not sleeping well.”

“Uh – good morning.”

“I can give you a discount if you take both. A lavender or bergamot candle might help too.” She lifted a candle in a small glass votive and the bergamot scent hit him like an ambush, recreating for a moment the sensation of a soft hand clasping his, the vertigo of looking into cloud-blue eyes. “Allergic,” he managed.

“All right, this one.” She snapped a match against the side of a box repeatedly, but whatever New Age skills she had apparently didn’t extend to damp phosphorous. After a half dozen swipes Crowley took pity on her, thumbed a matchbook out of his inside jacket pocket, lit the candle; glanced down at the matchbook cover and hurriedly tucked it away again.

“Sweet orange will help with the urge to smoke – “ Must not have aired the jacket out long enough. “And this basil combination is very good for anxiety.“

“I’m not anxious,” he said, feeling increasingly anxious.

“Well, you’re certainly anxious about people here finding out that you’re gay.”

“ _What?”_ he managed in a stage whisper, glancing from one side to the other. “Are you bloody _psychic_?”

“Yes,” she said, ”on and off, but mostly it was how fast you hid that matchbook from the Cock Tavern in Kennington.”

“Well, put it in the _Advertiser_ , why don’t you.”

“Breathe into your centre. It’s between you and me, but you know, I don’t think anyone here really cares that much. I’ve always been fairly sure about old Tyler, and look at Mr. Fell, no one has anything but good to say about him.”

“Is he – ah – ?” He tried to sound only casually curious. Maybe the bergamot candle would be okay. Or not. Maybe he had a doting husband who baked for the Ladies’ Beneficial Society and they gave ice cream socials where all the bicycling kids were welcome.

“Well, no real idea. But all male librarians are gay, whether they are or not.” For the first time, the Very Serious eyes behind the magnifying-glass lenses sparkled with a little humour.

“Librarian? Thought he was just the local squire, like.”

“Oh, certainly that. But everyone needs a hobby, and we can’t all be witches. The library’s attached to the north corner of the school, you’ll have passed it coming in to rehearsal last night. I told them when they built it that it belonged in the Wisdom bagua, but no one listens to me.” She handed him a tally headed _Anathema Device, Aromatherapy, Space Clearing, Aura Analysis._ “That’ll be twelve pounds fifty, discount for the combination special. I threw in some tincture of eyebright for the photosensitivity, no one wears sunglasses this early in the day."

He spotted Hastur and Dr. Liguri – they hadn’t seemed to him like early types, but he supposed you fell into a rhythm teaching Secondary – flanking the young tubist Newt, who was gazing longingly at the seemingly oblivious [ _weirdo? witch?]_ now busily rearranging her candles and smudge bundles.

“It’ll work a treat, lad, always does,” said Hastur.

“All the sheilas fall for a serenade.”

“Wait till it’s late and everyone’s asleep. Right under her window. Play your heart out. You’ll be in over the sill in no time, Bob’s your uncle.”

“You do remember I – uh – play the tuba.”

“Just so. Tells ‘er the size’ve your love, like."

“Shows the strength of your passion.”

“Choose something that tells you how you think of her.”

“Be bold, young Pulsifer. True love waits.”

“But not long.”

Crowley felt a little badly for the young tubist, but left them to it. Solving other people’s problems wasn’t his job. Just creating them, he thought glumly.

The Ladies’ Beneficial Society had set up: the _Famous Pear Tart_ , poppyseed bread, jammy dodgers, homemade bourbon biscuits. He picked out some iced pink ones – a regressive taste he felt entitled to indulge just now – and endured Mrs. Young’s gushing.

“Did you hear? He’s actually coming.”

“Who?” _Jesus? Prince Charles? Idris Elba?_ That last wasn’t a bad notion.

“Oh, you wouldn’t be up to speed, would you? Mr. Dowling, the Assistant Minister for Culture. We entered the lottery for his tour of Britain’s amateur arts groups and the letter came yesterday, we are _On The List._ ” She spoke in the audible capitals of a practiced clubwoman. “That’s one reason we hired Dr. Zingarelli instead of someone who came less dear. He’ll be at the concert. Family, staff, press.”

“Oh, so no pressure then.”

“Dear lady, perhaps a half dozen of these.”

The bassoonist was at his elbow, already licking the smear of some sort of strawberry and custard tart off his lips. Urgh. Definitely right choice to pass up the bergamot candle. Sleep was the last thing it would have induced.

“And some of these gorgeous-looking chocolate thingys, and I don’t suppose you have any of the whisky cake from last week?”

“Mrs. Potts hasn’t been baking. Quite busy at the moment.”

“Oh, certainly, certainly. Just these, then. Have you tried them?”

Crowley realized he was being addressed. Fell nodded toward the strawberry tart, the clear imprint of his small front teeth scoring the custard. “You really must.”

“Ah – brushed after breakfast,” said Crowley, and fled.

* * *

He came home with not only marketing for the week but a good-sized bag of onion and garlic setts, and after putting everything away he broke out the brand-new shovel and hoe he’d bought at Hall’s before leaving London, and went to work on what looked like the ghost of a garden plot between the kitchen door and the apple tree. The afternoon heated up and he stripped to his vest, leaning against the fence and a little guiltily pausing for his one cigarette of the day.

“So that’s how y’stay so fit. E’s fit, innee?” came a voice.

Hastur and Dr. Liguri were standing in the lane, still laden with their haul from the market. They did seem to be joined at the hip.

“Not actually – ah – used to this. Wanted a garden though, one reason I moved here. Can tell my back’s gonna feel it.”

“Ah. Little witchy lady’d have somethin’ for that. Wun’t she?” Hastur elbowed his companion.

“Ah, not his type.”

“Wun’t be fair, any road. Young’un deserves a chance.”

“Whatcha plantin’?”

“Winter crops. Onions, garlic. ‘Spect I can get in some greens before planting season’s gone.”

“I got a colony of t’best earthworms,” said Hastur. “You could come round ‘n’ pick some up. Use ’em for dissection but there’s plenty to spare. Wriggly’s you could ask for. Aerate your soil, like.” He made it sound rude.

“C’mon, we’ll miss the post.”

“So we will. Off t’the rectory.”

He worked until his shoulders refused to propel the shovel or hoe any longer, drew a bath – on consideration, he dropped in some of the orange oil – averted his attention deliberately from a fragmentary memory of Dream Dr. Zingarelli, _put him in the bathtub,_ and emerged to a serviceable frozen dinner from his surgical strike at the nearest Sainsbury’s, all he could tackle even with his fridge full of the bounty of Tadfield. Practicing his flute parts beguiled the rest of the evening. He did not, did _not_ think about anything but sleep when he crept, already aching, into bed.

* * *

The dream was trying to come back, but it was already breaking up. The thundering voice of unintelligible condemnation segued into a vaguely comic, breathy but penetrating bass noise that seemed to come from outside.

The bedroom window faced West and a long shaft of moonlight slanted into it. Well after midnight, now that he was out of the City and could judge such things by the night sky and not the red Hellglow of a digital clock. Someone a short distance away was playing the tuba.

Jesus tapdancing Christ.

You could almost distinguish a melody. He gradually recognized the big aria from _Norma,_ because the most performed instrumental transcription was for flute, echoing the _bel canto_ line of a lyric soprano. The repeated turns and grace notes, played haltingly and in a struggling rhythm, came off entirely differently in the tuba register:

 _Chaste goddess, who bathes in silver light_  
_These ancient, hallowed trees,  
_ _Turn thy fair face upon us…_

Somewhere at a much further distance, a cat yowled. It seemed to be a fairly astute music critic.

“ _Someone_ ,” muttered Crowley. “Have mercy.”

He pulled his favourite pillow over his ear, too ballasted with sleep to go close the window, and drifted in and out of awareness till a commotion of irate voices brought the solo to an end. _Enfold the earth in that sweet peace Which, through Thee, reigns in heaven._

The sky was pale before he got back to sleep for good. When he woke autumn light was slanting in. Toward the village centre, he could just see a music stand, the small LED reading lamp clipped to it still burning faintly, in the lane outside Anathema Device’s garden.

* * *

“ _I’d’ve had you cited for breaking the noise ordinance, young man, only Miss Device insisted no.”_

R. P. Tyler’s voice was distinctly audible in the director’s office, which also housed the music library. Unintelligible response. Crowley had spent most of the afternoon FaceTiming with a cranky client about an interactive platform that was supposed to _facilitate customer engagement_ but which was transparently intended to reduce actual human interaction to a profitable minimum. He didn’t need to hear any more irritable tones of voice.

“All right, Signore… is it _Cr-_ ow _-ley?”_ They pronounced it as if they’d just stubbed their toe.

“Cr-OH. Like the bird.” He might as well go with it.

“ _And I’m sure your mother wouldn’t have been happy about it.”_

“The score seems to be missing from the library, but _cognosco.”_ They flipped the ends of the tailcoat back – he distinctly saw a puff of dust – sat at the piano, and commenced a series of flowing broken chords.

He hadn’t been able to get the aria out of his head, and had spent most of Sunday refreshing his phrasing. He was barely a few bars in when Zingarelli interrupted their accompaniment with a dissonant, slamming chord. “ _Fermati!”_

“Ah… is there a problem?” This was it, it was going to be the bathtub.

“Done,” they said. “You can play. First chair. Thursday evening. Send in the next.”

A student violinist sat outside, clearly still vibrating from the loud chord and paler than the sheet music in her hand. “Sin bravely,” murmured Crowley as he slunk out.

* * *

He was early for the quintet rehearsal, and decided to open up a little bit, so absorbed that he jumped when Fell’s voice came from a few feet behind him.

“My dear boy. Is that _bebop?”_

“Um… Jethro Tull.” _Bebop? “Aqualung._ It’s, um, concept rock.”

“I’m unacquainted. You must tell me more sometime.”

_Sounds perfect. I’ll pour us out a bit of that ten-year-old Jura that I just got out of the packing case, we’ll get some of the Ladies’ Society tarts, and I’ll talk about concept albums while I watch you eat them._

Anathema swept in – she apparently owned a collection of subtly different long blue skirts – followed by a student clarinetist with a terrified, mousy expression and the obnoxiously self-assured hornist, lavender scarf still in place, jacket yoke straining. His volume overpowered everyone else, but when Aziraphale held up a hand to.return to the top for the second time – the piece was a two-minute bonbon, meant to reassure audience members with short attention spans – it was to say “My dear Mr. Crowley – yes? _Do_ switch over from _concept rock_. Excessive _rubato_ is the vice of the amateur.”

Trying to glare at Fell was a mistake. A little flush was starting above the cupid’s bow of his upper lip, the universal blazon of the double reed player, and Crowley almost missed an entrance contemplating it. Why did wind players move their eyebrows up and down? They all did it, Crowley knew he did it too, but it made Aziraphale look indecently rapturous. His hands spread over the complicated scaffolding of keys, the nails buffed to a dull gloss, the shellac of the instrument’s rosewood finish almost refracting.

“The descant line is romantic enough as Puccini wrote it,” said Fell as the clarinetist fled and Dr. Zingarelli mooched in, opening the piano. “I just meant it needn’t be more so.”

“Signorina Device, Signor Archer, please.”

Crowley noticed that the witch, if that was what she was, suspended a small crystal from her music stand on the side facing the hornist, now that there was no other player between them.

“Reckon I’ve played a thousand descants. Know the drill.”

“Dear boy, don’t be cross. Your tone is Celestial.”

“Gonna say anything to that Yank about drowning us all out then?’

“Ah – I’m afraid that’s Gabriel. I find that it suits better to let him throw his weight around until closer to concert time. We go head to head enough in real life.” He closed the case. “I think it went splendidly. Next week?”

As they left the horn and oboe were tossing a melody back and forth, the overhead fluorescents glinting off Anathema’s faceted crystal almost in rhythm. Crowley considered offering to drop the older man somewhere, _find out where he lives, no, that’s creepy_ , missed his chance. Drove back to his cottage humming the Puccini aria: _My secret lies hidden within me: I will reveal it only on your lips, and my kiss shall break the silence which makes you mine._

Oh, he was going to be _fine._

* * *

He just hadn’t been out in too long, hadn’t let his hair down. Difficult clients, sorting out the cottage, trips back and forth along the M4, falling into bed for unrefreshing sleep. The last time he’d pulled someone in a club had been a disaster, culminating in a flight down the fire escape at two a.m., sans shoes or underwear.

 _It doesn’t have to be about him_ , thought Crowley as he pulled up the second blanket, buffering the autumnal draft from the cracked window. _He just made me Think Thoughts because it’s been donkey’s since I had a shag._ He'd stopped doing anything but one-night stands years ago, stopped even spending the night after the third _get out of here you fucking freak,_ still disoriented from the dream that he’d woken from shouting and flailing. It was riskier getting what he needed from strangers – edgier things over time, sometimes things that hurt – but it was a tradeoff that worked.

Maybe when he got the place settled and furnished. Back to someone else’s, someone anonymous with powerful hands (he liked to feel his wrists yanked up over his head, those large, soft hands would be strong), or kneeling crudely in a coatroom or mews, face pressed to the crotch of half-open trousers (the rosewood barrel of that solid instrument, resting against a thick thigh) _._

He was already moving his hand over himself, thinking about the loud music, nothing more than a drug that dulled caution, made a space for shared hungers with no remembrance or regrets. _I’ll take proper care of you soon_ , he thought _,_ wrapping himself snugly, _get someone who’s a little rough and a lot eager and isn’t prissy or didactic,_ face not important, name not important. But when he licked his palm and pushed harder into it the movements were slower and sweeter than usual, the deep timbres of the music had hummed through the metal folding chair and into his body, _none shall sleep._

What came then rose from somewhere deep that he liked to pretend wasn’t there any longer, except when he played. He flooded into his hand on a long suspended moan, like that last bright note fading into silence, and when he lifted it away sticky and cooling there was the fleeting image of a reddened lip and a delicate tongue, flicking away the last smears of custard from a manicured fingertip.

He didn’t have the dream. He woke only once, to drop the window because rain was blowing in, but not before holding his hand out into it, the sobering cold washing everything away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The maxim "all male librarians are gay, whether they are or not" was a saying of an ex's ex, herself a librarian.
> 
> Here, for those interested, is the music for this chapter:
> 
> [Crowley's audition piece/Newt's serenade](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpPnUVVIKdg) (unsurprisingly, no tuba version of the aria is available online).
> 
> A riff from Jethro Tull's [ Aqualung](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd16nyM-2gY)
> 
> Yes, there is indeed a wind quintet setting of the aria Nessun Dorma ("None shall sleep") from Puccini's Turandot, made endlessly famous by Luciano Pavarotti. You can listen [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrSMKUAwFFI&list=FLFLrfMjwrF1QXATmFc-t7Nw&index=2) It's rather nice but you can see how the horn player holds all the cards.
> 
> The piece Dr. Z., Ana and Gabriel are working up is the first movement of a  
> [cute little trio for horn, oboe and piano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb6D85zXN_w) by Hans Herzogenberg. I'm not sure if they'll get away with it.
> 
> If you're enjoying, share with friends and comment! Serenade me on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


	3. Our American Cousin

The garden was coming along. He had blisters, which twinged a little when he practiced (when had he forgotten that you needed gloves for this kind of thing?), and the sectioned-off plots were just polite placeholders bounded with coloured string, but he’d have radishes and some leafy vegetables before winter put an end to it. The city left you too full of greasy curries and late-night pizza deliveries. He was getting freckles, and his muscles were hardening up. This was doing him good.

It was also exposing him to the frank curiosity of what seemed like every mortal resident of Lower Tadfield. Exactly who’d had the idea that a cottage in the countryside would buffer him from all the little live things that were beginning to make London intolerable? Oh, right, he had. Nasturtium Cottage was close enough to the Village Centre that most people who lived there seemed to pass by on the average day, and it had a rail fence that you could lean on.

“Sorry about the other night. Idea that didn’t work out. Got a little carried away.”

The young man Newt had permanently watery eyes – he looked like one of those people who’re allergic to everything – and seemed to live in a worn duffel coat.

“No worries. Don’t sleep a lot anyway. Run on coffee when I’m working, catches up with you.”

“Adam says you’re a marketing consultant. Get folk interested in stuff.” Newt took a moment to consider. “Know anything about getting girls interested?”

“Not really my area,” said Crowley carefully. “You got a phone plan or a new model of car you want to roll out, could help you.” He tossed another stone onto the small cairn that was forming at the edge of the plot. “Me, I see someone I like, offer to buy ’em a drink, let ’em buy me one, chat ’em up a little. Works or it doesn’t.” _Ends up in a strange bedroom or the back seat of a car, or it doesn’t._ “You get an itch, you scratch it. Reckon I’m not a romantic.” _Not any more, anyway._

“I don’t think she ever goes down the Tun.” The Pippin and Tun was Tadfield’s local, largely supported, he gathered, by Shadwell and what he was beginning to think of as the Lurking Twins, because Hastur and Dr. Liguri seemed to be loitering in every place in or near Tadfield that he had any business; it was starting to get a little creepy. “And anyway Mum’s teetotal.”

“Buy some of those fancy candles and that at the market ‘n’ chat her up.”

“Allergic,” confirmed Newt, sniffling loudly, as if to demonstrate. “I tried that and every time I said something, I sneezed.”

“Don’t know what to tell you, mate. Get this plot going, might be able to slide you a big bouquet of chard to take her.”

“She might like that,” said Newt and took his leave gloomily.

The rehearsals were coming along, too. Gemma and Lucinda _were_ hopeless, for the most part, but pathetically receptive to any advice he could give, and he found that the quarter hour or so of pointers he took to giving them after rehearsal made time to watch Aziraphale Fell out of the corner of his eye. He rarely left before a brief huddle with Mrs. Young, who seemed to regard him as her second-in-command and general provider of moral support. If he noticed Crowley lingering, he said nothing.

Crowley determined fairly early on that Lucinda had a mild crush on him and that Gemma, who was by far the less capable player, had taken up the instrument because she had a crush on Lucinda. It made his surreptitious eyeballing of the cherubic bassoonist feel a bit more harmless.

Then there was the occasional incident of horseplay or, less often, pomposity from the horn section. The _Pilgrim’s Chorus_ orchestration, scaffolded with brass columns, was an audience-pleaser and one that even an amateur orchestra could do in its sleep, but Gabriel Archer seemed to have _opinions._ He raised his hand after a few bars of the run-through at the third rehearsal. Dr. Zingarelli, hand turned palm down to silence the group, said “Yes?”

“Ah – thanks, B. Z., just one observation – “

 _Did he just call them by their initials? Christ, bloody Yanks._ “This is several metronome points slower than the tempo in Wagner’s original score. I’ve studied it.” The American’s expression was half eager Golden Retriever, half officious prat. How did he manage that? “I have an electronic metronome here, if you’d like to borrow it.” And he actually held up a small battery-operated device from the side of his music stand with the hand that wasn’t supporting the coils of his horn.

“What… did… you… just… call… me?” said Zingarelli, in a tempo more than several metronome points slower than they’d been conducting. The blue eyes were all but drilling through Gabriel's flesh. Any second now the baton would fly.

“B. Z., _Maestro_. An affectionate nickname.” Gabriel always wore a turtleneck so white it made you squint. “Tell you what, just try it once my way, and see how it sounds?”

Zingarelli slammed their baton down on the podium, pivoted on one foot and stalked off into the director’s office. Deirdre Young, who always attended rehearsals even if she didn’t play anything – Crowley gathered that she was the Keeper Of The Keys – jumped up and scooted after them.

“It’s right in the original score,” repeated Gabriel to the soundless reproach of several sidelong glares. Crowley wondered what was supposed to happen next, and Aziraphale surprised him by resting his bassoon across the folding chair, stepping to the podium and picking up the baton. He adjusted a pair of half-moon reading glasses ( _how the fuck are those so sexy?),_ said “From the letter B, please,” and gave the upbeat. Expostulations in mixed English and Italian issued in a counterpoint from behind the glass-windowed door of the director’s office, where Mrs. Young had discreetly drawn the shade.

The terrified clarinetist (who had a deal to do in the second statement of the theme) survived. The student string players didn’t saw any more horribly than others Crowley had endured, and Gabriel seemed quite happy to cut through them all when the horns took the melody. Dr. Zingarelli returned to the podium after a break. No one said anything else about it.

* * *

“Didn’t know you ever directed.”

“I’m more of a doughnut,” said Aziraphale, pulling the cleaning muslin through the segments of his bassoon.

“A what?”

“Like the temporary tyres cars have in the boot. Not really good for a whole performance, but I can read a score and serve in an emergency. I’m just glad they didn’t throw the baton this time.”

”I thought Gabriel was for it.” It was hard to suppress his smile. Fell echoed it.

“I rather enjoyed it myself. I don’t usually come off so well in my quarterly ordeals with him.”

“What’s that about?”

“Ah – thought I’d mentioned it. The daily good deed, and so on.”

“Thought y’were just having me on.” _On a couch, that might be good. On the piano bench over there._ He had to get out somewhere soon, maybe Plush up in Oxford or back down to Kennington, he’d always done well there.

“I’m afraid not. It’s one of those invincibly British inheritance stories. Black sheep of the family, and all.”

“Not you.” Aziraphale didn’t even _wear_ black; his rumpled but always spotless long coat was cream-coloured, everything about him glowed a warm white.

“From one perspective. The only one who wasn’t _ambitious,_ which was a bit of a black mark in the family’s eyes. No gift for finance, investing, that sort of thing. Like Gabriel. He’s a second cousin of sorts, and the current trustee. I suppose he considers himself my minder.”

“Can’t think why y’need one.”

“Well. Terms of the trust. I was never going to come to anything, you see, at least that was how the family saw it, spent all my time at Uni on music and the classics, but Mum _was_ the grandfather’s favourite daughter, so he settled a quite breathtaking amount in a trust for me. The only recurrent condition is that I disburse ten per cent of every quarterly cheque on _good works,_ to remind me _how lucky I am._ I can live the life of a local squire with the rest. And Gabriel means to keep me honest. One can’t blame him, if I flag in my labours, the principal reverts to the rest of the family in equal shares. I told you it was one of those English stories.”

“Which he’s not.”

“Ah. Well, you know, two nations separated by a common language. One of my older cousins married into an American banking family, a bit like the Medicis and that, you know, and Gabriel ended up here. It never seems to quite rub off him.”

“And that’s all you’ve got to do, give to the needy and deserving?”

“Roughly. There are a few other tiresome contingencies that seem unlikely to come into play, but that’s the gist of it. Hence, I am Tadfield’s Angel Of Music. And a few other things.” He hefted the bassoon case. “I _do_ realize how lucky I am. It’s no burden.”

“Drop you off?”

“Oh, right, you came in that _vintage_ automobile. I’ve seen you tearing along at the edge of town, I’m sure you go _much_ too fast for me. And I do fancy my stroll. Good night.”

Twin glints of blue as he turned at the door of the now-empty rehearsal room and waved. Very blue. Smiling. Sparkling.

_We’re not going there again.._

Hold that thought.

* * *

He had that one damned difficult client the following Tuesday, the one who always wanted a face-to-face. He'd already forgotten how much he hated sitting in traffic. Dense piano chords sounded in counterpoint to his boot-heels as he clicked late up the hall – he’d gone back to what he was now thinking of as his _London Look_ for the meeting, surprised at how much he was coming to prefer soft dark flannel shirts and looser jeans and waffle-soled boots. It was definitely not the _Barcarolle,_ but Tracy’s voice soared as he paused in the door, while Zingarelli, at the keyboard, segued into suaver harmonies.

“I’m afraid it’s my fault for bringing up Orff while we were waiting,” came Aziraphale’s amused voice from beside him. “I gather our director is known for their interpretation. Let’s see if our resident diva still has the high E.”

A long, transparent lyric line, then a piano interval, hand-stretching chords meant to stand in for a full chorus. Tempo toggling from an almost frenetic pace to a slow deliberate one. _Don’t think about what this sounds like._ Hypnotic repetition, a final acceleration, this was musical smut and he was listening to it beside a pair of Ribston Pippin cheeks and pink-icing lips; then Tracy sprang up an octave to a pitch that rightly belonged to his flute, rippled down the scale in a long sigh, leaped back up, a final, brutal jump to a drawn-out high note. A languorous, fading descent.

“Oi,” he said. “‘S’like the Rocky Horror virgin hazing.”

“Is that more _bebop?”_

 _Okay. You’re not gay._ “Classic camp film. Surely you’ve. Uh.”

“I may have heard of it. It sounds a bit, well, rude.”

“Not any ruder than _that_.”

“Ah, but you know what Miss Russell said about opera. _You can do anything, so long as you sing it._ ” That twinkle was going to be the death of him. _Okay, maybe you are._ “Shall we get started?”

* * *

Gabriel seemed to be trying to mend his _faux pas_ at the next full rehearsal _._ So far as Crowley could see, this consisted of asking the Maestro for their opinion on phrasing and volume and the composer’s intent, until they finally waved their hands in the air as if trying to shake something off them and said “ _Basta, basta,_ _devo provare le viole_ ,” demonstrating mainly that he could irritate them out of speaking English. It didn’t stop him from telling the Lurking Twins gravely how much he appreciated the opportunity to work with _B. Z._ “It’s good to spend time with _someone_ who takes music _seriously.”_

“Not ‘arf so seriously as y’take y’rself, guv,” muttered Hastur, lifting one arse-cheek slightly off the metal folding chair to break expressive wind. “All in the embouchure, don’t y’know?” he said to no one in particular.

Crowley, scrolling through his phone until the Maestro got through terrorizing the string section, stopped cold in his perusal of an events calendar and glanced over at Aziraphale.

Was this a good idea?

Nope. It was a probably a terrible one.

Never mind. Sin bravely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mum's teetotal": cf. Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring, the tale of a boy who lives with Mum and is so meek and obedient the ladies elect him May King. "Have you never been for a pint at the 'local'?" "Mum's teetotal."
> 
> Tracy and Dr. Z. are doing riffs from the Court Of Love section of Orff's Carmina Burana, in which there are two soprano solos separated by a rhythmic chorus that speeds and slows in a fairly suggestive way, but often performed back to back in concert (or possibly front to front). One is sweet and yielding, the other is a graphic orgasm. [Here, through 2:55.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zWjfcnTWtU)
> 
> Dame Anna Russell (1911-2006) liked to include the remark about "anything so long as you sing it" in her [potted analysis of Wagner's Ring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51QeoIKf_uc) (9:08 in this clip), referring to the second opera which starts with a random stranger arriving at a house on a dark and stormy night and promptly seducing his host's wife on the bear rug only to find she's his long lost sister. And show not a sign of chagrin about it.
> 
> If this is fun, share with friends, comment, sing to me on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


	4. Bad Ideas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter. More soon.

“Here you are,” said the driver, extending an invoice scribbled on a printed form. “New customer discount, ten per cent off the total. We’ve been out to this’n’ before, but not for you. Seems only fair.” They’d arrived pretty rapidly after he realized that the spray from the shower, despite the pallid water pressure, had filled the tub up to his ankles, and then gone into the kitchen to have the the disposer turn into a geyser. He didn’t begrudge the high three-figure sum – he had it in the bank, he just hadn’t planned on spending it this way. “Goin’ to be tree roots in t'end. Prob'ly have to dig up the yard, but this’ll last you a bit.”

He could afford that, too, but it probably meant the apple tree, and he wasn’t touching that. He’d gotten a strange affection for it, the fruit’s sunset blush deepening by the day, not quite ripe yet, but he’d already written a small speech in his head. _Mrs. Young, as a newcomer I was given to understand that…_ Fell had mentioned the apple tarts that showed up every autumn on the Ladies’ Society table when that tree was harvested, with a dewy eagerness that was almost indecent. Maybe it was just him.

The rest of the afternoon’s conversations were less pleasant. _Do you know how many subscribers we had to reimburse this month? You’re the one who came up with that guaranteed no-penalty cancellation the third time a call dropped._ Well right, squire, I went over your service record, should’ve been safe as houses. _Well there were hundreds of subscribers affected after we switched over to piggyback on Vodafone._ No one told me you’d be doin’ that, did they? Everyone knows their service is bollocks. _It was a cost cutting move._ I’ll still expect my cheque.

The sun was dropping when he decided to walk off the annoyance and made his way up to the school. The library was open till seven. He’d just amble in. Say he needed a change from streaming video. Start up a conversation. Unless Fell was one of those librarians who shushed you. _No, I swear I am not making up a sexy librarian scene in my head._

Good thing he wasn’t. The only people behind the desk were Pepper and Wensley.

“He goes home around four, after there’s no one else looking for help with homework,” said Wensley. “We cover and lock up. Extra credit.”

“I can help you find a book. Or a video,” said Pepper.

“And I’ve just been cataloguing the music library,” said Wensley. “Mr. Fell lets me take out extra discs if I do, student limit’s usually two. The teachers are loads stricter ’n’ him. Except Dr. Liguri.”

“Dr. Lizard The Wizard.” It wasn’t clear whether Pepper approved of the nickname or not.

“He’s aces, always lets the person who scores highest on the quiz ride in the dumbwaiter.”

"Dumbwaiter?" A surreal image of a chemistry class sitting down to dine. Molecular cuisine, perhaps.

“Stinks lab gets heavy deliveries, and it’s on the top floor, so there’s a dumbwaiter at the loading dock and most of us can still fit in. _Totally_ against the safety rules, but it’s brill. I win so much I give my ride to Adam or Brian sometimes.”

In the end he left a note. It wouldn’t really do to ask a couple of junior library staffers for their boss’s phone number or e-mail, which was something he’d managed not to get in a month of rehearsals. _If you’ve got a free evening Saturday and can trust me to drive the speed limit, I’ve got tickets to a performance you might enjoy._ For appearances’ sake, he accepted Pepper’s recommendation of a recent fantasy novel, _The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter,_ which he gathered involved a victim of witch persecution taking a clever and definitive revenge. “You realize the witch hunts were _all_ about patriarchy and misogyny,” she said. “It’s rare that a male author _gets_ it.” Crowley wasn’t much of a reader, but it seemed like the right change of pace for someone living in a village with its own resident witch.

“Saw th’ drains got y’,” came a voice as he returned toward the lane. The Lurking Twins were also done for the day, it seemed. “Had a bet. You’re buyin’.” This last was spoken not to Crowley but Liguri.

“Arr, been _almost_ a month.”

“But not quite. You’re buyin’ for him too. How ‘bout it?”

The Pippin and Tun's chalkboard advertised an app that you could use to order your takeaway of shepherds’ pie or beef stew, but the tables looked like they’d been there since George VI. Assorted other faculty from Tadfield Secondary waved to the Twins, there was a ripple of shouting as someone scored in the football match on the telly, young Newt stood at the end of the bar looking at a pint of lager as if it might bite, and Shadwell was at his elbow exhorting him.

“The wiles o’ women only distract ye from the guardianship o’ your soul, laddie. Armageddon looms ever nearer.”

“ ‘fraid that’s my fault,” said Crowley, nodding. “Told ‘im to try buyin’ ’er a drink, anything but the midnight tuba concert. Not sure he’s ever had a pint.”

“We’ll sort ‘im,” said Hastur.

“You, for example,” said Shadwell, turning to thump a gnarled finger into Crowley’s sternum with a force just the near side of simple assault. “Have ye kept yerself pure o’ the wiles o’ women?”

“Um, it’s complicated – “

“You want t'pace yourself, lad, just make sure she drinks more’n you.”

“They lure us from the path o' righteousness wi’ their dulcet voices – “

“Only wimmen dun’t want a _pint_ , tiny bladders, see.”

“So you need to get ‘er somethin’ small and fancy. What’ve they got fancy?”

“And lead us to perdition wi’ their scarlet lips.”

“Does this look like a gastropub, mate?” This was the publican.

“I don’t even know how to ask her down here – “

“Fortune favors the brave, lad.”

“That’s what you said about the tuba.”

“But if ye put on the armour of blessedness – “

“ ‘Nother round, one for our young friend here, too.”

“I haven’t really finished – “

“I’m good,” said Crowley, raising a hand.

“ – the sweet siren song shall not corrupt thee – “

“Excuse me, which way is the loo?”

“Lightweight,” sighed Hastur.

“ – and the tongues of men shall praise – “ The _tongues of men_ was an uncomfortably tactile notion, and for a moment he imagined a place darker and more crowded than this, an agreement reached by look and gesture in a room too loud for speech, the pressure of a wall at his back, the swoop of fear and lust at the grip of a stranger’s hands. Tadfield felt briefly remote, a toy village seen through the wrong end of a telescope. What the fuck was he doing here?

Shadwell had resumed exhorting a much paler – possibly even greener – Newt when he slipped out into the sharp breeze of the Oxfordshire night.

The next morning his e-mail contained a message from [_afell@zoho.co.uk_](mailto:afell@zoho.co.uk) _:_

_Dear boy, you have piqued my interest. Shall we say six p.m. at the library entrance? I’m afraid I’m tutoring up till that time, but I’ll get some sandwiches in from the Tun, if you don’t mind eating on the way. Do you know they have one of those app things that lets you order right from your phone without having to shout over the dreadful din? Have you tried those?_

_Looking forward with fascinated curiosity,_

_Yours, A. Z. Fell._

Of course he _signed_ his e-mail. He would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my misspent college days I used to hang out in the mail room talking trash with the postmistress. It was in the basement of the Science Building and one day, unexpectedly, the dumbwaiter used for deliveries of glassware and supplies to the labs upstairs began to heave and groan. Momentarily the compartment chunked onto our level, the postmistress opened the door, and Luis, a banty pre-med student from Nicaragua who went about five-four and one-thirty in his sock feet, got out. Just a regular day.
> 
> Still here? Comment, share with your friends, pull up a pubstool on Tumblr! @CopperPlateBeech


	5. A Jolly Fine Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pinky swear, the performance herein depicted is lifted from a real-life staging by a local troupe of Savoyards who... just wandered off the reservation one day.

He didn’t usually invite other people to even ride in the Bentley, much less eat in it, but this was an Occasion, he decided.

Well, not an _Occasion_ occasion. Just forming a friendship, right? Satisfying his curiosity. Finding out just how gay you could be in Tadfield before anyone minded. Absolutely he wasn't tantalizing himself with something he shouldn't want, something that would go wrong the way it always did -- leaving him stuck here in a house with dodgy drains that he couldn't sell, looking everywhere but at _him_ during rehearsals, never going into the library, seeing him eat the tarts at every Saturday market.

Um.

At least one question was answered: Fell didn’t have the kind of domestic life that would make him turn down an invitation on a Saturday evening.

He needn’t have worried about the food either. When he pulled up to the library entrance at 6:03, Fell was already outside, the security lamp backlighting the pale floss of his hair, holding a paper sack that, as he slid into the passenger seat, filled the compartment with an unexpected scent of Middle Eastern spices.

“A charming young lady brought it right round on a bicycle," he said. "Hummus and falafel. I hope it’s not too disastrous.” He set the sack on the floorboards between his feet, extracted an enormous handkerchief from his jacket pocket with all the flourish of a prestidigitator, spread it doubled across his lap, offered another to Crowley, and produced from the sack two butcher-paper packets, containing a stuffed pita apiece, and a tartan Thermos filled with steaming tea.

“I must say this has me all atwitter. I’ve not had an outing in ages” – Crowley noticed he carefully didn’t say _date_ – “and I fear I’m susceptible to a bit of mystery. Who’s performing?”

“Local group. They usually do the Savoy operas, but -- well, this is more like that _do anything long's you sing it_ business. We can leave if you hate it, reckoned this outfit wouldn't do it too over the top.”

“Oh, now you have me quite agog. I do love the Savoy plays, I have all the remastered D’Oyly Carte recordings.” Fell unwrapped one of the packets. “I gather the Minister's keen too, that's why Deirdre insisted on the _Iolanthe -- "_ He seemed to catch Crowley's eye on the fat sandwich. "I’ll be ever so careful with this,” he said. “It’s a lovely car. I do respect that even if I’m not a driver.”

“One’ve the reasons I wanted to get out of London,” said Crowley, pulling out into the main road. “Just what it costs to garage her. ‘n then I can’t ever really open her up.”

“You promised, now.” Fell accomplished the remarkable feat of speaking daintily with his mouth half full. “Ah, these are better than I’d hoped. Would you like a bite of yours? I can hold it up.” He could bite a pita full of sprouts and hummus without the hummus going everywhere – all right, stealing a look while they stopped at the crossing – and lick his fingers with only the barest display of tongue. Something about years of managing that bassoon reed, maybe.

 _We are not starting out the evening with you hand-feeding me_ , he thought, but only answered: “Don’t eat much. Have a bite when we get there. Never know about traffic.”

Fell tucked the Thermos back in the sack. “I shan't open this again unless we're stopped -- Oh, what’s this?” _The Nice And Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter_ had ended up in the Bentley – the day had featured a few errands involving tiresome wait times – and he’d completely forgotten it was there. “Oh, you _are_ blending in. You know this has a bit of local history.”

“Moonchild kid just said it was a historical.”

“Well. I ordered it specially.” _Of course you did_. “There’s a tradition in our Miss Device’s family – no one can say how, ah, _accurate_ – that she’s actually descended from the heroine of the story. I believe it happened in Lancashire, actually, but Miss Device still speaks reverently of Agnes. ‘She’d have had me do this, or that.’ It’s a quaint sort of ancestor worship. Perhaps it’s why she’s been single so long, though our Newton seems anxious to remedy that.”

“All for it if it means no more tuba solos.”

“Oh, dear, I heard about that.”

“Weren’t jokin’ about Froggy and friend. That was all down to them.” They were stuck at a long on-ramp light and Crowley reached out, found the butcher’s paper wrapping in his hand, risked a bite.

“I fear they’re irrepressible. Though I’m enjoying our new director’s approach.” Late in Thursday’s rehearsal, Zingarelli had responded to a strategic _womp womp_ from the second desk horns – during the Barcarolle, at an especially tender crescendo – with a bravura baton hurl that bounced accurately from the bell of Hastur’s horn to Liguri’s. _“Vuoi due!!_ You will not speak another word!” (no one, in fact, had exactly spoken, but nobody wanted to point that out). In the ensuing fracas Shadwell had emptied his spit valve down Hastur’s collar, exclaiming "anyone who insults yon warblin' hussy’ll have me to deal with!”, Gabriel had shouted an apology for his section mates, provoking a second _womp womp,_ and Fell had had to take over the rehearsal again briefly while Zingarelli, once again sequestered in the office with an importunate Mrs. Young, could be heard shouting _cazzo_ and throwing things.

"I'll take that, you need to watch the road – oh! We’re going to Oxford, aren’t we?”

“Rumbled my sinister plot, Mr. Fell.”

“Oh, splendid -- You know I’m no stranger to the Bodleian, but – " Fell closed his eyes at that point. Traffic was actually light, but he didn’t open them again until the car slowed. 

"This isn’t my usual part of town.” Small winding streets were jammed with parked vehicles, pavements with young people in various degrees of Goth attire. They mingled with a sizable complement of slightly bewildered-looking householder types, probably the troupe's usual audience, whose presence reassured Crowley that this evening's mixture wouldn't be _too_ rich.

The queue formed beside a sandwich board on the sidewalk: _The Rocky Horror Musical, Three Weekends Only_. Crowley guessed parlayed storage space, possibly something students used between terms. Someone who was obviously the lead actor stood by the ticket-taker, muscular in bustier and fishnet stockings, brandishing a lipstick.

“Oh! I see! Jolly fun – this is dress-up – “

“It totally is, darling. You fit right in.”

“Didn’t I see you in _Pirates_ – :?”

“No chatting up the cast, gorgeous. Is this your first time?”

“Ah – ?”

“For the _show_ , darling.”

“Well, yes, I confess I’ve never – “

The lipstick whipped up, inscribed a vivid V on Fell’s forehead. “You’re one of our _special_ guests then. Find a seat, sweetie, but one where you can get down to the stage.”

Temporary risers held tube-and-plastic rental chairs. A cash bar was doing a brisk business in the area that served as a lobby; most of the customers were dressed in black, exotically made up, and indeterminate as to traditional gender.

“Well, this is – unconventional.”

“Not exactly _Pinafore.”_ That was the only Savoy opera Crowley knew.

Frank N. Furter sashayed onto the stage in teetering stilettos. “All right, darlings, welcome to tonight’s performance. If you have cell phones, please pull them out now – “

A general shuffle in the theatre.

“Set them to _vibrate_? And then pop them up your own arses, there’s a duck.” Crowley winced. He hadn’t run across that riff before, but Fell was merely suppressing a chortle wide-eyed, cuminy-scented handkerchief over his mouth.

“If you have a big red _V_ for Virgin, just airbus on down. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”

Stage whisper: “I do believe that would be me.” Fell bustled past him. Several perplexed pairs of eyes scanned his Downton Abbey outfit.

“All right, darlings, you are all Rocky Horror _virgins_ , and we demand virgin tribute. You, Miss – “

“Petunia.”

“Pee – tunia. Fake an orgasm for me. Don’t be shy, darling, you know everyone in here’s done it.”

Crowley studied Fell’s face. Lips puckered as if in thought, brows raised as if he were playing a heartfelt phrase, it was a study in piqued observation. Petunia’s unconvincing _oh-oh-oh_ barely passed muster.

The second virgin put his back into it a bit more, leaning toward the _Oh God_ school of sexual enthusiasm. “All right, sweetheart, here’s a tissue. And you are – ?”

“Aziraphale.”

“Gesundheit.” General laughter. Crowley found himself a little irritated on Fell’s behalf, but the blue eyes were still lively, game, animated. “No – it’s a family name – it comes from angelology, you see – “

“Well you’re in our Satanic clutches, darling. Come on then.” Voice lowered conspiratorially, extending the cordless mic. “Give us your best orgasm.”

At first Crowley thought Aziraphale was going to faint – this had seemed like a much better idea back in Tadfield – because a distant, glazed look came into his eyes. Suddenly they fluttered shut, while his mouth opened slightly and a startled-sounding whimper escaped. Then another at a higher pitch. He threw his head back, hopscotching up the scale two or three more times on successively quicker breaths, then released a wail that rivalled Tracy’s in length and luxury if not body of tone, before his voice faded away on a satiated sigh.

There was utter silence in the theatre, and then as one the haphazardly costumed audience applauded.

“Well, darling, I believe you win the evening,” said Dr. Furter. “You are clearly no longer a _Virgin_.” He daubed the lipstick on Aziraphale’s forehead with a tissue, getting most of it.

“What was _that_?” hissed Crowley as Aziraphale resettled in his seat.

“Simply giving it my all. Isn’t that meant to be the idea?”

“You had half the audience ruining their Marks and Sparks'.” _Including me._

“Oh, surely not. I simply applied a little of Tracy’s _sostenuto_ , a little twelve-tone, and a bit of the way I can’t help sounding when Mrs.Young makes that divine pear tart. She always says it’s a trifle indecent.”

“So that’s not the authentic performance?”

“Terribly out of practice, if you mean what I think you do.” Did he _wink?_

_You’re going to kill me._

* * *

I _’ve created a monster,_ he was reflecting by the interval.

Perhaps Fell really didn’t get out much. He perched forward in his seat throughout the first act, clapping decorously at the ends of the dance numbers, greeting Frank N. Furter’s reveal with “Oh, jolly good,” looking dazzled at the athletic bouncing of Rocky.

They had bad champagne ("dreadful stuff, but I suppose it's meant to be part of the whole _louche_ experience") at the interval. “Really, it’s full of classical tropes – simply layered on the horror and scientifiction genres – “ Did anyone actually ever call it _scientifiction_? – “the young lovers, the cross-dressing and confusion about gender – that’s quite Shakespearean – “

“Never spent much time on literature class.”

“Oh, you’d love the funny ones. And the absolutely coarse humor is parlayed Aristophanes, the Greeks liked their comedy brutally vulgar, you know, rude props and so on. And, of course, there’s the obvious reference to Mary Shelley. The audience engagement is also quite classic, the whole solemn gravity of theatre-going is quite a recent phenomenon.”

Crowley began to feel slightly out of his depth and groped for a pivot. Perhaps this was what the boys in Secondary had felt like when he talked about music. He gestured with his pink plastic champagne flute. “So – um. It really is an angel name? That’s not just Mrs. Pear Tart?”

“For my sins in a past life. Something of a family thing. Oddly, it does denote an angel of music. There were some very religious folk in the grandfather’s generation.”

“Just thought it might be a rich people sort’ve thing, wantin’ special names. Like Trayton or Sienna.”

“Do I detect a hint of the Fabian?”

“Could tell you if I knew what that was.”

“We really must see to your education.”

The crap champagne was working on him a little, and he almost said “Please, Headmaster?” He was literally saved by the bell.

* * *

Somehow he got through the choreographed couplings and the comic Grand Guignol of the second act without combusting, though it was a close thing when Fell began trying to follow along on the audience callouts. “Oh, that was exhilarating,” he said as they found their way over cobbles to the winding side street and settled in the Bentley. “Preposterous enough that the carnage was merely farce, you know, I’ve seen _Titus Andronicus_ done that way, though it was probably ill-advised. And the double seduction belonged right with the most scandalous bits of Suetonius – “

“Hey, _angel,_ you’re getting way ahead of me. Not much of a reader, me.”

“What ever did you study in school then? I confess I don’t know what occupies the minds of marketing consultants.”

“Be grateful. Nah, I was good at music and maths. And getting beat up.”

“Musicians often are good at maths, though I’m afraid I’m the exception that proves the rule. Sorry to hear about the beating-up part, though.”

“Ah, you know what schoolboys are.” He had to turn on the wipers as they merged onto the A road. “Twist your arm up behind your back if you’re not good at games.” He didn’t mention how it had aroused him, the male sweat of schoolyard yobs in the flush of puberty, the grip of harsh hands, or being straddled as he was punched, as much closeness to another boy as he could hope for. Something to replay later, in bed in the dark. “And I was always askin’ questions, y’know that’ll do for you with people who’d rather go through life stupid. Ma was always good about it, told me to be proud I was better’n them.”

“I hope your father was supportive. They do so often want their sons to be little, what’s the expression, alpha males.”

“Wouldn’t know. Buggered off somewhere ‘fore I was born.” Perhaps it was the odd intimacy of a car at night, on mostly empty roads. He hadn’t told anyone the story since Uni.

A brief touch on his sleeve. “My dear. I’m sorry. How did you get on?”

“Just did, I guess. Sometimes she worked, sometimes we got the dole. She grew up in the country, one’ve the places we lived had a back garden big enough to grow some veg. Saved a few pounds.”

“I suppose the music came from her too?”

”Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Wanted me t’go to Uni for music though.”

“Why ever didn’t you?”

“Ah, knew how good I wasn’t. Signed onto the business courses instead, started out with banking, but turned out I was better at the leadin’ into temptation thing. Wanted to be sure she never hurt for another thing money could buy.”

“I’m sure she understood.”

“Yeah, well. Kept the dicky heart a secret, didn’t she, got the call last day’ve finals.”

He didn’t expect it to come out sounding quite so bitter. He could sense Fell letting it sink in.

“My dear fellow. No wonder you have a Fabian streak. You must think me obscenely privileged.”

He was already embarrassed at having said too much. _Good job pouring cold water on the evening, Crowley._ Turn the conversation. “Still haven’t explained _Fabian._ ”

“Social reformers. It’s probably why we have things like the NHS.” Fell was silent for a moment, thoughtful.. “But you know, if you won’t take this the wrong way, I envy you a bit. It’s odd to think that my family’s never been much more to me than a slightly comic nuisance. I don’t wish them ill, but there’s hardly a one I’d miss. And sometimes I think they’re looking at me rather like vultures.”

“The trust thing?”

“Exactly so. It seems to hum along quite nicely from year to year, much to everyone’s disappointment. I’ve lent a bit to the younger ones when they hit a rough patch, they’ve always repaid on the barrelhead, but one always gets the feeling they’d be happier not having to ask. I don’t mean that I fear the poisoned dram, just – .”

“Just hoping you’ll miss the quarterly goal?” That was a concept he understood.

“Something like that. Also, they eye my personal life a bit anxiously. If I marry, I gain control of the entire amount. Grandfather was very traditional. And he did set such store by securing a posterity.” A chuckle came into his tone. “I confess to enjoying a bit of a cat and mouse game last spring, when I was rehearsing a series of duets with young Miss Device. Gabriel became remarkably attentive. He must be relieved that she has another, ahem, suitor.”

“Never gave any thought to it?” Crowley tried to make it sound light.

“It just never seemed to be in the cards. I suppose I might have cobbled, you know, a marriage of convenience, but it seems a shame to impose a charade on a woman who would marry for love, and one wouldn’t want to become entangled with someone who’d marry without it.”

It was the closest he’d come to actually saying it. If that was what he was saying.

“And I’m perfectly comfortable. Tadfield really has everything one could wish for. So – there it is.”

The everyday world began to surround them again, the Post Office, the gravel roundabout that circled the War Memorial.

“Stop by the Tun? Still open. Afters on me.”

“A bit rowdy for my taste. I think you’d better just drop me at the library. I forgot my current book there in the excitement of it all, and one does need a stroll after all that time in the seats.” Did he feel disappointment or relief? “Here we are, this’ll do… Thank you for a jolly fine evening. Mind how you go, now.”

He waved and disappeared into the building..

“Well,” Crowley found himself muttering out loud. “That was a thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm not the first to slip Rocky Horror into a GO fic, but 'twas the season to begin with, and fun fact, Rocky has indeed been performed by a group in Oxford, and was mounted (ahem) locally by the Savoyard company in which my late and ex husband had sung his last name role as Dick Deadeye a decade before. The hazing was much as depicted here (that is, tamer than many), except that I had a brutal sports injury and hobbled down to the stage leaning on an ashplant before unlimbering a high F on the staff (the breakpoint for my whistle register), which got the top audience vote. _Je suis Aziraphale._


	6. Deep Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a dark and stormy night...

“It’s perfectly secure – we’ve never had any trouble – “

“Not for you to judge, ma’am, I’m afraid. Unsettled times, we need people at all the entrances.”

A disturbingly generic-looking man in a dark suit, sporting an earpiece and a perfectly uniform two-day stubble, herded Deirdre Young in and out of the auditorium, where rehearsals had moved now that the performance was getting closer. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked harried, in a way that suggested second thoughts about the Ministerial progress stopping in Tadfield.

“Really, it’s a small village, everyone knows everybody – “

 _And that’s the problem,_ thought Crowley, tuning up. His thoughts veered from _let him make the next move_ to _what next move, this is monumentally stupid,_ he missed his entrance twice, and then Mrs.Young wanted Aziraphale and Gabriel for something with the Man In Black and only Gabriel came back, and the quintet rehearsal was over and Zingarelli was at the piano, and he couldn’t think of a reason to hang about that wouldn’t put Mr. Security’s nose out of joint.

He crawled going down the lane and through the roundabout, but there was no cottony head of hair glowing under a lamp standard. Christ. He was stalking a chubby, bubbly little bassoon player ten years older than he was, practically the village squire, _might as well make a magic lantern show out’ve your personal affairs, mate._ _Love’s just an itch anyhow, better get it scratched before you blow your whole life up. Get a good hard pair of hands on you, maybe to push and pull you around a little bit,_ the itch always went away after that. For a while, anyway. And then he could do it again. That had always been the plan, hadn’t it?

The third time he picked up his phone to scroll through the websites of bars and clubs that were nearby – but not too near – he found himself, for a third time, looking up concert and theatre listings, things that would make a good

[outing]

for a cherub with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

* * *

If Tuesday's rehearsal was disrupted, Thursday's was chaos. Zingarelli, an Indefinite Leave resident, had had to sit down with the Ministerial security people for a grilling; was still swearing under their breath in dialect, and looked as if their hair was receiving messages from Alpha Centauri. They lost almost all command of English at points, cuing the horns and bassoons: “ _Corni e faggotti!”_ to muffled titters from the largely student violin section.

The second time _Iolanthe_ derailed in a collision of mistimed entrances, they slashed both hands downward like someone gutting a deer, shouting “ _Dilettanti!_ Full orchestra rehearsal on Tuesday until this is right!”

Gabriel raised his hand and called in a carrying voice over the subsiding trainwreck of the strings: “I think I see the problem, Dr. Z. People are still confused by the two-four time on top of the triplets – perhaps if your baton work were a little more emphatic – “

Crowley ducked reflexively as, taking the suggestion, they hurled the weapon in question in a spinning arc directly at Gabriel.

Who snapped his hand up, caught it --

\-- and after a second that lasted for eternity, tossed it back.

For a moment no one breathed. Violet eyes blazed at blue ones. The small, almost childlike hand clamped around the baton midway along its length.

Then Zingarelli lifted the finger and thumb of the other hand to the baton’s tip, slid their grip down to the cork heel, paused another second, and flicked upward.

 _“Ricomincia,”_ they said in a voice of controlled fury. “From the letter F.”

* * *

He’d never seen Aziraphale angry, actually hadn’t imagined it was even possible, but when he slipped out for a smoke during the interval – these were the moments he needed it – he caught sight of the blond head and quaint coat, facing off with Gabriel at the turn of the hall, voices low but eyes locked, the air around them thick enough to cut and stack.

He couldn’t listen without being obvious, and when he’d given the night air time to blow the smoke off his jacket and came back in, both were seated in front of their music stands, pointedly running through the figures of the Strauss.

Deirdre Young descended on Aziraphale like a distraught cormorant as soon as the rehearsal was over. There’d be no asking him – assuming it was any of his business – but he wasn’t sure their argument had anything to do with the irritable little Maestro.

He hadn’t imagined it. Gabriel looked scared.

* * *

He’d left London to get away from drama. Right. Tadfield’s weren’t any less dramatic, just pettier. It was still dark when he dressed the next day, eager to get out on the road even if it only meant a day of transcendently boring meetings with the two Birmingham clients, waving at a Powerpoint presentation, wondering if anyone was actually paying attention. Persuading them his ideas had raised their profit margin. He could already taste the drink he’d get himself after, someplace a long way from the Pippin and Tun, someplace noisy and crowded where no one knew his name. Taste the things he’d do there. It was past time and then some. Somewhere around Oxford, or closer to London if he finished early enough.

The Lurking Twins were out for their morning constitutional – or maybe just walking to work – when he pulled past the War Memorial. Both lifted hands simultaneously, cigarette-tips pulsing neon-orange in the stiff breeze.

By the time he reached the M-way the heavens had opened. _Take her out in the country and open her up, yep_. He settled down to a slow crawl behind a string of rain-blurred lights.

* * *

It hadn’t gotten better by day’s end. There were already detours, but the more delays he met, the more determined he became. _Otherwise there’ll always be an excuse_ , he thought, not considering why he’d want one.

He dashed for the door through a bombardment of cold raindrops, mixed with small hail that hammered the cars parked outside in a tinny tattoo. That was going to cut down on the action. The barkeep saw his streaming hair and handed him a barmop.

"Rough night,” came a voice from his left as he handed it back.

The face was pout-lipped, a little dark, white hairs flecking the temples and a streak down either side of the perfectly trimmed beard. He’d forget it in the morning. “Seen you in here before?”

“Might’ve. Anthony. ‘N’ I don’t mind _rough nights._ ” The obligatory handshake, that turned into a silent telegraph of posture and gesture and glance. _That’s how I like it, mate._

“Get y’a drink, what’s yours?”

“Single malt, ice.”

“Two’ve that.” Dark, thick hair showed at the wrists of his jean jacket, a little more where his belt buckle dented a hard stomach just below the hem of his shirt. Crowley could feel that strength already. Against a wall, over a car bonnet.

“You look like someone who works hard and plays hard.”

“Long’s it’s safe.”

“Not _too_ safe, I bet.”

“Might be lookin’ for the one’ll take my breath away.” It was risky, that kind of thing, but he needed something that would push everything else out of his mind. Keep him from doing something stupid. He was half-hard in his trousers before they were well out on the floor.

A thumb running over his temple. "Story about the tat?"

"Someone I'd just as soon forget." And he had; he found there was no sense memory of a tone of voice, a face, any face, only of hands and pressure and giving up control. That was the point.

"Won't forget me." It sounded almost like a threat.

The dance music slowed; the management knew that by this time, anyone who hadn’t hooked up was starting to get anxious, move it along. Sweat and spice, a solid grip steering Crowley around the dance floor. Whisky breath and the dense prickle of a mustache against his mouth. Hands on his arse, pulling him tight.

“Got some good stuff back at my place. You’ll like it.”

“Can’t. Have to drive later.”

“You’ll like it,” repeated the man. “ ‘f’ I’m gonna be Daddy tonight. That’s what you want, ennit?” He drew the back of meaty fingers across Crowley’s Adam’s apple, growled in his ear “You’re pretty, Red,” braced a hand in the small of his back, slow rubbing as they swayed back and forth, feet barely moving.

The track ended. “Gettin’ my coat. You wait right here like a good boy,” and he did, already high with anticipation, except what was the expression, _goose walked over my grave,_ because some genre-crossing idiot had decided the melody of _Nessun Dorma_ worked as a pop song, an over-orchestrated, rubbishy grab-someone-before-closing song. He could just spot the bearded man on the other side of the floor, shrugging on a hooded parka, and he wasn’t really aware of closing the distance to the door, only the rain sluicing down on him as his boot hit the pavement, the fog inside the Bentley’s windscreen. He forgot his lights until he’d pulled out onto the motorway.

* * *

Three of the roads into Tadfield were blocked off by police sawhorses, his headlamps glinting off their red reflectors and the broad pocked ponds of flooded road beyond. The fourth looked almost as bad, but it hadn’t been barricaded yet. He pushed through the resistance as he went to half the depth of the tyres, then felt the pressure of water against the car body, then a sudden jolt as one tyre went into a pothole washed out by the rainfall. For a string of moments that wheel was dangling in space, but the other bit as he ramped the accelerator, barely aware that he was hissing under his breath _no, no, no, you are_ my _car,_ there were planes with smaller engines, somehow he got up over the lip of fractured asphalt, water winging out alongside either fender in a muddy wake, back onto the road surface, rolling again –

The headlamps winked gracefully out, a sigh of fading light. He steered left as the cylinders stuttered, slid to a halt.

Drowned the engine. Damn.

He waited a few minutes, tried it. Nothing, just a solenoid click.

He’d never been this way out of the village but the once, to buy the raised beds; one side of the road was all dark orchard, the lights of a few windows just visible ahead. His phone barely showed one bar, _no Internet_. He braced for the cold deluge, swung open the door, instantly drenched as he started toward the nearest lights.

By the time he reached them his fingers, clutching his jacket uselessly closed, were chilled to a wooden nervelessness. The cottage was a little larger than his own, a single storey surrounded by sedate shrubs, light lying in a golden oblong in the side yard. Knocked: nothing. _Please tell me someone didn’t just leave the lights on._ Thumped again. His boots squelched as he rounded the corner of the house, sank to his trouser cuffs into a small bed of geraniums around the foundation. The sill was deep brick; he pulled himself up far enough to see if anyone was inside –

Aziraphale Fell sat, haloed by mellow lamplight, in a wingback chair, wrapped in a paisley dressing gown and pale blue pyjamas, headphones on his ears, transported, one hand stroking a beat out of the air in front of him.

Crowley rapped on the window. One hand went to the headphones. He rapped again. Finally Fell took them off and looked, and then the frame was going up and he was dropping back into the thick mud to sink to his boot tops.

“Crowley? Is that ever _you?_ What on earth – “ The light from inside glinted off his half-moon glasses, haloed his head.

“Crossing’s flooded. Forgot the Bentley can’t swim.”

“Whatever are you doing out on a night like – it’s raining stair-rods – come up in the porch, here – “ A bright wedge spilled out from the entryway as he rounded the corner of the house.

“Is there an all-night garage? I’ll need it towed and probably the crankcase drained. I’m a bloody idiot, I was just getting sick of detours.”

“My dear boy. You really _are_ from London. Let me close up, it’s blowing in.”

Crowley became aware that he was dripping copiously onto what was probably a woollen carpet.

“Ouch, I’ll go back in the porch – “

“You’ll do no such thing. You’re drenched, and Curry’s doesn’t open till eight. I haven’t a clue where else you’d call _,_ I’ve never driven _._ Just couldn’t see the point. Let’s get those boots off – “ Aziraphale found a spot for them on the lino of a dim kitchen. “We can leave a message. No one comes along here, the car ought to be safe – “

“Managed to roll her half onto the verge.”

“That should do. Now – you look like a drowned rat – let me make some more cocoa – you’re shivering, get in the shower. The water pressure in Tadfield isn’t any better than the rest of this sceptred isle, but I had an electric pump put in when I improved the place, and an inline water heater. Perks of being the squire.”

His teeth were chattering too hard for him to demur, and a puddle was spreading around him on the lino. He let himself be herded.

The shower had a double waterfall head, and steam was already billowing from behind the curtain when Aziraphale passed in an enormous fluffy white robe. “Whisky in the cocoa, do you think?”

“Cocoa in the whisky?” He was just about able to make the words come out intelligibly.

“Clever boots. I’ve put on the towel warmer. I’m going to call Curry’s now.”

The bath was full of Aziraphale’s scents: bergamot, something mineral and faint like petrichor, maybe amber. The mud had squelched in over the tops of his boots, saturating his socks, and a stream of fine grit ran off his feet and down the drain. He washed away not just the chill and the mud but the day, the last hours of the evening, letting the spray pummel his head and shoulders, half asleep on his feet. The plumbing made a deep thumping sound when he switched it off. The towel was thick, toasted by the warmer, big enough to wrap his hair until no more water trickled out of it.

“That’s a bit of all right, that is.”

“My dear boy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wearing a stitch of white.”

“Probably haven’t since my first job. With a caterer. Little white dinner jacket, you know the ones.”

“I can only imagine how toothsome you looked.” Had he just said _toothsome?_ The sound system was discoursing Schubert's _Trout_. “Here, you were properly blue when you came in. I decided a little Kirschwasser was best.”

No objections. There was only the one big wingback chair, but a long couch offered a crocheted afghan. Blue and beige, again. The room smelled of old books, was lined with books, actually had a rolling library ladder at the corner of an inside wall scaffolded floor to ceiling with shelves. An antique-looking desk in one corner held an antique-looking laptop.

Large squashy pillows nestled in the angles of the couch. He subsided gratefully. The cocoa was about a quarter Kirsch and for several long minutes he merely sipped it and wrapped himself around the heat, letting the music purl over him.

“Get that inside you and get some rest. We’ll deal with the garage in the morning.”

“Thanks. This'll be comfy.”

“Oh, no. You shall have the bed. I often stay up all night – “

“I couldn’t.”

“Nonsense. I shall be here with my music for a while yet, I do get carried away with it from time to time. I can wash your clothes – I suppose that shirt oughtn’t to go in? Just a rinse and hang up then – Look, you’re already dropping off.”

“Sorry – “

“I'll hear no more of it. Off to bed with you. You’re lucky something worse didn’t happen and I’m sure you know it.”

 _You haven’t got the first idea,_ thought Crowley.

“Right in here – “

The carpet was thick and the bed so high there was a step to help you clamber in, and he kept the robe snugged around him as Fell piled on a down quilt like a thick warm cloud, and he couldn’t count the pillows. It would have meant staying awake, for one thing. Schubert was faint at the other end of the hall, the window was dark, the lash of the rain against it only white noise, a tiny line of light showed under the door. The world disappeared.

* * *

“My dear fellow – wake up, _do_ wake up – _Anthony!!”_

He was having the dream again. The heat, the stinking burn of the blackening feathers, the pouring sweat, hands trapping his arms against his sides.

” _Anthony.”_ The hands were shaking him. “You were shouting. Oh, dear – you’re not feverish, are you? – “

He was clutching, ignominiously, at Fell’s pyjama-clad upper arms. They were surprisingly dense and muscular. Early light drew a band across the blue-striped poplin.

It took a moment for breathing to slow to the point speech was possible. “I – no, I – get these sometimes. Just – could I get a flannel or something?”

A sound of taps running across the hall, Fell returning with a handtowel wrung out in cold water. “I’d decided to get a few winks on the couch after all, probably dozed off for a bit and then I heard you. It’ll be the shock. I have odd dreams too at times.”

“No – I always – “

“Just be still a moment. Let me feel. No, you’re not running a temperature.” The hand against his temple was still cool from the bath tap; sense memory of holding an ice pack against the tattoo as it healed. “You gave me quite the fright.”

“Sorry to be a nuisance like this – “

“Tosh. A bit of water?”

Usually when the dream was over, it was over, but somehow the fear stayed with him this time, and he was still humming with a deep tremor. Water slopped over the rim of the glass.

“Would it help to tell me about it?”

He’d never told anyone. Fell’s eyes – still peering over the reading glasses, little pools of cool gray-blue – were worried and kind, his weight solid on the edge of the mattress, a gravitational pull.

“Called ’em night terrors when I was in school. But it’s always been the same. More or less. You know how you never smell anything in dreams, least I don’t, only – “ The burning-feather stench was still in his nostrils, arguing with the citrus and chocolate he could whiff on Fell, and somehow he was explaining it all: the stars, the flying, the plummet, the flames. The hands grappling him, pinioning him. He could feel his heart slowing as he drained the glass. Fell took it, and then, startlingly and comfortingly, his hand.

“You see, you’re already better. It sounds quite Miltonian. I don’t blame you for shouting.”

“Could be worse. Sometimes I’ve hit – ah, people.”

“Well, as to that. My embouchure may be a little tender for a day or two.” Fell touched his finger to the inside of his lower lip, brought it away slightly pink. “You have quite a backhand.” And he was _smiling_ , as if it charmed him. “It’s nothing, I know you didn’t mean to – “

Crowley leaned forward and kissed him.

Delicately, tentatively but directly on the mouth, tasting the faint iron saltiness on his outbreath. _What the fuck have I just done,_ he thought, not moving, lips lingering on lips in a bare contact. There was a moment when he considered the option of having the ground open beneath him, managed “Sorry, I – “ as he lifted his head, then felt a warm hand at the back of his neck.

It was a gentle touch, but - he discovered when he tried to draw back further – utterly immovable. A weightless sensation flushed through his body, as if some vital and electric energy were reaching beyond his skin.

“Never apologize for doing something lovely,” said Fell, and this time when their mouths met he let himself taste, cocoa and the fleeting metallic pungency of the tiny split he’d inflicted, they _were_ sharp little teeth. A dull clunk as the glass rolled off the duvet and hit the carpet.

For a moment he thought the kiss was about to break, but Fell only huffed in a quick breath, as if he were between phrases in a long melody, and opened against his lips, bare tongue-tip stunning him with more sensation than the roughest pair of possessive hands. He was so hard it was almost mortifying, grateful for the folds of eiderdown rumpled between them, _this had really better stop_ , tell that to his hands which had risen to the deep V of blond curls where the paisley dressing-gown opened over the top button of the pyjamas. The thatch of hair was soft, everything about the man was soft, except for the unyielding force of the hand holding Crowley’s head close. Crowley felt himself melting into that pressure, opening for a deeper kiss –

There was a loud pounding on the cottage door. He realized there’d been a politer one half a minute ago.

“Oh! Dear me, that’s the man from Curry’s – I – I’ll go, your clothes are hanging up in the bath – I’ve left you one of my old shirts, yours isn’t quite dry – “

Fell turned briefly in the bedroom doorway with an unreadable expression – stricken, jolted, regretful? For which reason? Crowley realized he was staring open-mouthed.

He could hear the deep engine ramp of a heavy vehicle as he buttoned and zipped, tried to put his hair to rights, fuck it, _went to bed with it wet and looks it_. Aziraphale’s pale blue pinpoint shirt swam on him. He fished his sunglasses out of the damp jacket pocket as he stepped into the hall, the cottage faced East and the sun was cresting the slaty clouds at the horizon into a clear chilly sky, making him squint even indoors. Fell’s voice and a deeper, genial one, _You Mister Cowwley? – No, he’ll be right out –_

“Ista classic down the lane then? Beauty.” Work boots, flat cap, blue coveralls with the garage name stitched over the breast pocket. “Get’r sorted. Three calls last night, glad I come in early.”

The boots were still drenched. “Oh, dear – here, take my slippers, they’ll wash up, no, I insist – “

Their eyes met again, the space between them thick and wordless.

“You can – ah, no rush about returning them. I – ”

“Thanks – “

The engine rumbled outside, filling the entry with mephitic combustion. “ _Do_ let me know if everything is all right,” said Fell. Crowley nodded once and bounded out in slippered feet, carrying boots and jacket, after a garageman who didn’t seem inclined to dawdle.

The Lurking Twins were leaning against the orchard fence on the far side of the road, holding smoked-down cigarettes. Liguri waved.

Crowley waved hesitantly back. “Hi, guys.”

“Nice shades,” said Hastur as the passenger door of the flatbed lorry closed after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Yes, there really is more than one pop riff on poor abused _Nessun Dorma_. The one on the bar’s speakers in this chapter is [probably Roy Orbison’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrQhSk-_bXg)
> 
> [Here is the Iolanthe overture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ptW85YWYM) where the Friends of Music come to grief. You can hear R. P. Tyler coming in at 3:58, before the two-against-three tempo breaks the Tadfield group down at about 4:30. I picked a video that features the readable score for people who like to do that kind of thing. It's more contrapuntal than a lot of G and S and the group was ambitious to program it.


	7. Parallel Harmony

_Hello, Aziraphale. Car’s sorted, thanks again for last night –_

No, that wouldn’t work.

 _From: ajcrowley_  
_To: afell  
_ _Subject: we need to talk_

Even worse.

The market stalls were opening later as the days shortened. Mrs. Young and friends were selling cottage loaf, there was a glut of marrows, Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen, Anathema was doing card readings, _Samhain special,_ does your deck have an Ace Of Fuckups?, no, that blond head was young Adam in a strong ray of autumn sunshine, he could juggle a dozen eggs and sausages if the carrier had handles –

“Dr. Lizard said your car got pranged.”

“Will it be OK?”

Wensley and Brian, at his respective elbows. Brian had the amazing knack of always having a smear of some kind of food on his face.

“Not hit. I was a dumbarse and drove into water. Not used to the roads around here.”

“He said they had it up on Curry’s big lorry. Did you get to ride in it?”

“Yep.” Popped P. “You really call him Lizard? To his face, like?’

“Oh yeah. That’s how he knows we like him.”

“Best teacher in Tadfield. Showed us how you can blow up sodium after everyone passed this week's quiz. Just a big enough chunk in water. Bang!”

"Loads better'n the exploding paint bag."

"Mum never got that out've my shirt."

“It was wizard.”

“‘S why we call him that.”

“Sounds like a bloody menace.”

“That’s why he’s brill.”

They cycled off, in the direction of, once again, no Aziraphale. The Lurking Twins were bracing Newt at some distance from the War Memorial. Maybe he ought to know what they were telling people this morning. Saunter vaguely down that way.

“”I oughtn’t to stop, Mum wanted me to be sure I got some aubergines before the best are all gone.”

“What’s more important? Step right up, here’s your chance. No sneezin’, just ‘ave ’er read your cards.”

“”Ask her to do your love prophecy.”

“What if it’s dreadful?”

“Then y’ask how to make it better. That’s what witches do.”

“Oi! Lizard! Leave the kid alone, why don’t you?”

Who’d said that? Oh. He had.

“Well, if it en’t the Magic Fluteplayer.”

“Thought you’d be sleepin’ in.”

“Bugger that,” said Crowley. “Just stop having him on like this. It isn’t funny.”

“Must’ve been a bad shag,” mouthed Hastur around a half-smoked butt he was trying to relight. Crowley suddenly hummed with adrenaline. Years of taunts and humiliation and _who do you fancy_ and bruises and beastliness swept his arm up, before he remembered that he was carrying a dozen eggs, and ought to protect his hands.

“Red’s got a temper,” said Liguri. “Better fook on off, us.”

Crowley turned to meet Newt’s perpetually pink-rimmed eyes. He looked a bit like a dwarf rabbit with a severe case of depression.

“I think they’re just trying to help,” Newt said. “They say brass players have to stick together. I mean, I asked Mum for advice about love, and all she’ll say is that I’ll meet the right girl someday – “

“Yeah,” said Crowley. ”So did mine.”

“Was it good advice?”

“You’re askin’ the wrong person,” he said, and walked off before he exploded from standing still.

* * *

_Drain and clean crankcase_  
_Drain fluid tanks and lines_  
_Replace filters_  
_Replace fuses_  
_Clean carburetor_  
_Check battery_  
_Courtesy wash and interior clean_

“Lot easier to do a save on a beast like this,” the garageman said admiringly as he cut Crowley’s Barclays card for an impressive sum. “Just took that couple’ve days for things to drain and dry. Modern cars wi’ all that fiddly shite, you’d be done, mate. Built ’em better then, ask me.”

He took a photo of the car and, after a moment’s thought, the invoice with the sums cropped out. A deliberately light message.

_Good as new. See you at rehearsal?_

A few hours later – no, he hadn’t kept checking his phone, had he? -- the reply came in.

_You see, Tadfield really does have everything you could wish for._  
_Till then._

* * *

Shadwell looked to have gotten a head start on the flask before showing up. Crowley suspected he might have two or three more secreted in the euphonium case.

“And his office called yesterday and wanted to know how many tickets we’d sold, and I said we sell most of them at the door, and then they wanted a seat count, why they couldn't have done that when they were here I don't know, I can’t get the same number twice and then what if we put out the extra chairs on the sides– “

“We can get one of the students who’s good at maths.”

“And they’re going to have metal detectors, I had no idea, you know Mr. Tyler’s got the artificial hip, it’ll be like Luton airport – “

“My dear lady. I’m sure it’s going to be fine.”

“It’s giving me one of my migraines, it’s been months. Do you think you could take care of locking up, Mr. Fell? I simply have to go home and lie down, Arthur’s the only one who knows how to rub my head.”

“Three hundred and thirty,” said Crowley softly as Aziraphale wove past him through the mostly seated orchestra.

“My dear?”

“Three hundred and thirty seats. Not rocket science.”

“Oh! You did say you were good at maths – “ The blue eyes brimmed with sweetness as Fell touched two fingers to the back of the hand that already held Crowley’s flute at port arms.

_Fuck, I’m going to have to hurt him. Easier now than later._

The upbeat.

_Again from the letter B._

Staccato baton tap.

_Woodwinds only, please._

Somehow in that blessed angle of masonry by the dock that hid your bad habits, pulling out the last Player Blue in his pocket. It was getting cold enough that his breath showed even without the smoke.

 _This is the waltz, not the quick march! It is erotic, sensual! You_ inglese _, feel something below your waists!_

Tracy melding her voice with one forty years younger. _Time flies away, and does not return._ Was that a sob from the brass section? Crowley glanced over his shoulder to see Shadwell openly tipping up a flask. _Save some for me, mate_ , he thought.

They ran through the anthem, which the Maestro directed with characteristic bombast, though they all knew it in their sleep.

“Full dress rehearsal, Thursday at seven. Do not be late, _in bocca al lupo_.”

 _Don’t fuck it up_ , thought Crowley as Gabriel buttonholed them on the way off the podium and followed them offstage with what must have been a budget of important ideas.

The violins trickled out piecemeal like the orchestra in the Farewell Symphony, Newt cleared the valves on his tuba, Hastur declared he needed a bloody drink or three. Crowley meticulously went through his sheet music, writing in breath marks with a mechanical pencil.

“Crowley, I – “

“We have to talk.”

They both spoke at the same time. Aziraphale recovered first.

“I need to take care of the doors once everyone’s out. Stay, and I’ll walk with you.”

Last footsteps receded. Music in order on the stand, flute in the case.

“Shadwell’s left his euphonium,” noted Crowley, just to say something that wasn’t what he was going to have to say.

“I can’t think he’ll remember before the morning. If then, to judge by the state he’s in.”

The heavy, dusty curtains at the side of the stage opened on the lighting box. Aziraphale was clearly used to doing this, house lights down, rows of floods off one by one, footlights blinking out. The battery-powered emergency lights came on. Aziraphale lifted off his glasses with slow deliberation, turned toward him.

“You must excuse me,” he said, was he asking to get by Crowley who was standing there like a numpty in the kind dimness? no, that was bergamot and amber up close, and their mouths opened into one another without an interval for thought.

Aziraphale bent delicately to one side, just far enough to set the bassoon case gently on the floorboards. His fingers laced through Crowley’s hair and held his head in place as if he never planned to let it go. His lips had the curious heated tang of someone who’s been pressing them to the mouthpiece of an instrument for over an hour.

_If we don’t say anything. If we just do this and don’t say anything. I haven’t got anything good to say._

Dark hallways, dark coatrooms, dark car parks. This was no different, it just smelled of chalk and genteel dry rot, there was still a wall to press him up against, stroke down the front of the cashmere trousers for what he knew he’d find. That bespoke shirt out of the trouser waistband, the worn velvet waistcoat unbuttoned, Crowley’s head full of spicy cologne and Aziraphale’s own elusive scent. Starting to drop to his knees, only to find the hand in his hair tugging back --

“Anthony – I – “ Husky whisper.

_Shut up. This is what you want. You don’t realize it, but it’s all you want._

“I think there’s – “

Heavy clump of waffled country boots. The outside door on its slow-closer whuffing shut.

“Warblin’ hussy.” Scrape of a folding chair. “Canna remember me own head when I see her. Hoor o’ Babylon.”

A loud thunk as the euphonium case flipped open. Three or four mournful notes.

“Soaked the earth wi' the wine of her fornications.”

An octave jump and a tone exercise of triad arpeggios.

“The wiles o’ wimmin snare us all and we must hold firm.”

A loud blatt, the sound of a cork leaving a bottleneck. Clearly the case did have room for a backup supply.

Aziraphale stepped gingerly away from the wall, fumbling at his waistcoat buttons and getting them into the wrong buttonholes. His hair was disarrayed, his glasses were jammed back on his face askew, his lips bitten red in the faint light. A sudden clatter made them both jump.

“Who’s there?”

The feet of the folding chair scraping. “Who’s there, ye foul fiend? Lyin’ in wait for a righteous man, show yerself – “ A long, slow-motion crash commenced, starting with the wiry twang of a music stand, the louder and more solid impact that was probably a folding chair or three, a sound that probably represented a euphonium coming to grief, and finally the heavy crash of ten or eleven stone of Scotsman capsizing. The last noise sounded like the hollow thump of a hard head.

Aziraphale swept the curtain back. “Mr. Shadwell, are you – “ The curtain on the other side of the stage swept back too.

Dr. Zingarelli stood there, sans tailcoat, tie and belligerent demeanor.

Gabriel actually did take that lavender scarf off sometimes.

“Uh,” he said, eloquently.

 _“Porca miseria,”_ said the Maestro.

"Mischief o' the foul fiend," groaned Shadwell.

“I think he’s all right,” said Aziraphale, adjusting his spectacles. “I believe that was the case we heard.”

Shadwell groped in his pocket, brought out yet another flask, and somehow managed to take a long pull from a prone position sprawled over the open euphonium case.

“I – ah – can call 999,” said Gabriel.

“Oh, would you be so kind? If you think it necessary. I never remember to carry those silly phones.”

“We can stay with him. You – um – I’m sure you’re busy.”

“Quite,” said Aziraphale, dropping Mrs. Young’s keyring into Gabriel’s hand.

“Jezebel,” moaned Shadwell, his head dropping to the stage floor with a more authentic thud.

 _“Vai fuori,”_ said Zingarelli. “I will continue my discussion of the Wagner score with Signor Archer. _Vai, vai.”_

Crowley picked up his flute case.

“Shall we go, dear boy? I really think it would be best if we were to take this again from the top.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the list of weird things authors have searched for online, add me Googling pictures of school auditoriums until I found one that looked about right for a place like Tadfield and counting the seats.
> 
> Everybody recognizes the _Barcarolle_ , but doesn't necessarily know that the mezzo/alto voice is a trouser role -- Nicklaus, the best friend of the protagonist Hoffmann, and also the Spirit of Music, who is sort of a lady muse so yeah, some gender bending. Or that Giuletta (the one lady still wearing her dress in [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFIRGzDZxgQ), Tracy's part in the duet) is a courtesan whose nights of love tang a bit of scandal. Poor Shadwell is so out of his depth.


	8. Dream A Little Dream Of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild CW for illegally switching into second person/present tense and back to third/past. :)

Kissing in the front bench seat of a Bentley delays the moment when you have to say what you’ve been getting ready to say. Kissing in the dim entry of a dark cottage doesn’t really make it that much worse.

Kissing in the hallway, between the entry and the bedroom, merely gives you a chance to pull yourself together and not take this where it’s headed. You’re not going to, cross your heart and swear.

Kissing in the bedroom doorway means you’re buying time. He’s truly lovely, all clouds and light, and it’s curious to remember what tenderness felt like, call this an information check. Letting blunt, nimble fingers slide your shirt buttons open is just appreciation of their agility, one musician owes that to another.

“I think we might be happier in a less vertical position, don’t you?”

Ah, that’s the problem with not speaking. When you try to, it doesn’t work.

“My dear boy. Are you all right?”

Any second now the words are going to make it out. _Aziraphale, we can’t._ In music it’s called a _tremolo_. Either pitch or volume wavers, possibly both.

“No – it’s only that – ”

“Do you want the light?”

Headshake. Darkness is better.

“Forgive me. Am I going too fast for you?”

“It’s not that – this just won’t work – “

“I can’t think why. I do suspect we both have a fair idea what we’re doing. Or am I completely misunderstanding things? I fear I'm becoming quite confused.”

Drop your head to his shoulder. That always says _I have to go now._

“When I didn't hear from you, you know, I was rather afraid I’d taken unfair advantage. Fetching up at my castle gate on a dark and stormy night, after all, like that quaint musical show.”

In the dark you can risk a smile. “Not that. Just knowin' that it's all gonna go bad. It always does."

“Come sit here beside me. There now. Shall we perhaps not get ahead of the facts?”

The bed’s so high that even your long legs dangle like a child’s. Like a child, you’ve got no answer.

"I merely feared I might have read things into what happened, out of wishful thinking. Are you saying that we’re meant to leave off here because sometime in the future it might not work out?”

You’re only audible because it’s so quiet here. “Be ok ‘f’ it was just a shag. But _you_ , see, can’t be, can it? ‘N’ then it’ll be _I need too much, I need the wrong thing_ , someone pretty n' soft's you, you'll hate me wantin' what I want. And then you’re here, ‘n’ I’m here, and the whole bloody _village_ is here – "

“Dear.” The kind of long silence that means the next words are difficult. “Please. Go if you need to, though I’d very much rather you didn’t. I confess to thinking far too much about you for some time now, and you don’t seem, um, unaffected.”

Finding your hand. Only courtesy to return the clasp. “Let me offer a middle way. It’s cold, and we’re both tired. Come a little closer if you like.” That’s not difficult. “We can do nothing at all, if you prefer. If you want to leave in the morning and say no more of it, I will honour that. Or slip away in the night, if you wish. But I would very much like to know, just the once, what it is to take you in my arms and fall asleep holding you.”

That almost breaks you, but all you say into his shoulder is: “Likely mean gettin' woke up with a smack in the face. Specialize ‘n it, me.”

“Dear. I think we’ve proven that I can withstand that.”

He’s strong, and solid, and good to cling to, and you don’t feel like running any more.

“Which side of the bed would you rather? I must warn you, I do snore.”

* * *

Like his own, the bedroom faced West. For a moment he thought that was where he was; then he took in the body heat surrounding him, the pillowy curly expanse of chest where his head was nestled. One smooth hand lay slack over his shoulderblades, the fingertips barely touching, and he could feel the rhythmic ruffling of his hair with soft exhalations that barely qualified as snores. _You can slip away in the night, if you like._

He had one leg out of the eiderdown and over the side of the bed when he decided it would be nice to be warm for a moment longer. Aziraphale uttered a wordless sound and shifted to weight him down with a thick arm. Better let him sleep. Plenty of time before morning.

* * *

When he woke to slanting sunlight he was alone, _good, did the sensible thing_ , only gradually he registered a warm smell of toast and coffee and almost certainly the bacon from the Iffley stall at the Saturday market. The eiderdown was snug, the air crisp.

Three-quarters of his brain was still asleep. Completely unfair that he had to decide what to do in this condition. Even more unfair to have to decide when his eyes opened on Aziraphale standing in the doorway, as daintily groomed and prim as if he’d been stood at the podium – if you allowed for his being in robe and pyjamas, and for the grease-glazed spatula held in the upbeat position, in lieu of a baton.

“Ah, there you are,” he said as if he were talking to an ordinary houseguest, “I’ve taken the liberty of getting some breakfast on. You seemed like the coffee type, I picked some up on the weekend just. In case you ever. Visited." The hesitations were barely there. "I had to read the directions, I hope I got it right -- ” And in fact the half-moon glasses were perched back on his nose, looking like something that needed to be removed immediately. “You were sleeping so soundly it seemed a shame to wake you, but I started to wonder if I ought, I didn’t know if you had anywhere you needed to be -- ?”

Crowley pulled himself up on one elbow, raking chaotic hair back from his face. 

“No,” he replied after a moment, reaching out. “I don’t.”

* * *

“Here, I’ll take that. It’ll wash out of the sheets, it’s just butter.”

“Not really used to anything but coffee for breakfast.”

“That seems like an omission that ought to be remedied. As should some others... Hm. Is this all right?”

“I – yeah.”

“I may have been a bit precipitate last night. It’s been so long. But exactly the reason to take one’s time. Oh, my – you’re very lovely here. This little bit where there’s no hair at all. Like silk under furs.”

“Ah. Hadn’t. Thought.” When had anyone taken the trouble to notice anything like that about him?

“You’ll forgive me for something of an epicure approach. This, for instance.” Soft fingertip just outside the long vee of muscle by his throat, the warmth of the whole hand teasingly close as if it might come to rest there (a shudder in his belly at the thought, Aziraphale must have felt it), stroking lightly enough to raise the hair at his nape. “It simply asks for a taste. If I may.” Tongue barely touching, as if on the tip of a reed, ready to make way for a melody. Then those sharp little teeth (marks in the custard). Stinging suction, enough to make him arch and twist.

“Oh my. Too much? – No? You’re delicious, _do_ hold still, I’m not done then. No, dear, let me – here.”

The broad palm ran down the corded muscle of his upper arm, held it away against the bed.

“There, that’s it – head back a little bit, perhaps – “ Fingers tugging gently in his hair. “I suspect right under here might be very sensitive – oh my, you do like that, don’t you? Hmm – what am I meant to do here, now?” The other palm traveling along his free arm where he’d stretched it overhead, pinning it below the wrist. Bearing down harder when he pushed back, to ask for it. “Oh, I see. I thought possibly.”

The touch of breath just under one ear, behind it, lips barely brushing as he twisted his head to one side. “Mm. That makes you want to squirm, doesn’t it? Your skin’s so delicate. I wondered if you’d appreciate this.”

 _I’m going to appreciate it all over your sheets if you keep that up_ , Crowley thought, the dry trace of lips exploring over his cheek, grazing the light stubble, lingering over his closed eyelids, ruffling the lashes. Fell was going to demolish him with this gradual investigation, like an archaeologist brushing the dust off a shard, a delicacy that was its own curious torture. A flash of memory to that last time, when he went down the fire escape, and the bruises hadn’t faded after a week.

These hands _could_ bruise. But they wouldn’t. That weight could hold him to the bed, and he arched as if trying to escape the soft untiring grip, felt Fell’s solid leg, still pyjama-clad, straddle and trap his own.

“You will of course tell me if anything hurts.” Less a request than an order. He was in that odd echoing space that surrounded him when someone else was in charge, only there had never been anything like this velvet control, and he tried a word, his own sharp inhale stealing it away.

“What’s that, dear?”

“It’s all right. If it – just a little.”

“Little? Something like this?” The tender little knot of his nipple caught between those baby teeth, drawn up just enough with perfect delicacy, threatening to be too much, not getting there. Held at the edge, _sostenuto_. A caress with that warmly flocked tongue just as it almost became too sharp, another, his hips were rocking into the mattress, the soft manacles of Aziraphale’s hands pressing in with his whole weight –

“Oh. Oh my.”

“Oh _God._ Sorry.”

“I think that’s quite enough of you saying _sorry._ As I said, it’ll wash out.”

Floating in a haze, the pressure withdrawing, a long stroke from collarbone to navel, tracking through a warm trickling mess, lingering.

“You are exquisite,” said Aziraphale.

“You. Can.”

“What, dear?”

“Whatever you want. Do to me.”

“Is that so? Well, if you’ll indulge me, I think I’d just like to see your face like this for a while. I hadn’t imagined it could look so peaceful. And it’s still quite early. You did say you had nowhere to be, didn’t you?”

* * *

“That – ah. Oh my dear. Perhaps a little slower – ohhh. You’ll let me know if I pull too hard, won’t you? So provident of you to grow it long like this. Hush, no talking with your mouth full. It’s atrocious manners… That was very naughty of you, you know, offering to do something like this right there backstage? But exciting-- we oughtn’t to – oh, stop a moment – scandalize Tadfield, but you know, you could run us down to London sometime in that splendid motor. If you promise not to frighten me…. I’ve not seen the galleries in too long, and I’m sure we can – ah – find places.”

* * *

"I was so close to asking after that delightful – excursion. But you seemed so. Raw, and a bit -- skittish. I couldn't be sure. And I wanted you awfully. If you’d driven me home I don’t think I’d have been able to help myself.”

The knot of his hair had come completely apart and stroking fingertips drew out the dull, sweet soreness at his nape. It had been almost _too hard._ But not quite.

"It did seem you were looking for-- something. Just like that clever _bebop_ of yours, it's quite impressive, but the real beauty comes through when someone else is directing. Call it a sixth sense, but -- well, I have to know the feeling is there, you see, and I couldn't trust my own instincts... are you sleeping?

"Mph. Still here, angel."

“You know, having you call me that is a bit different to hearing it from Mrs. Young. I believe I like it.”

“Gonna tell her. _"_

"You wouldn't."

"Would. Tell her you make the pear tart noise too."

“You are a wayward boy and clearly must be taken in hand. Do you know, I rather imagine I’m the one to do it."

* * *

“Angel, _can’t_ – “

“It’s already been twice, dear. You should be able to hold back. Ssst, ssst – no moving, or I shall have to stop. I should very much regret that, but we did have an agreement… Shall I tell you how lovely you look? You’re pink almost all the way down to here – _do_ hold still – oh, I can tell you like that. Already starting to make a mess again… Your hair’s everywhere, let me get it out of your eyes. Just the colour of Baltic amber…oh, you’re close, aren’t you? I’ll stop a moment. Sssst. ”

* * *

“I hope you won’t think me over-eager. But I did have such hope. I caught a bus after you left Saturday, just so as not to be buying this sort of thing at the chemist’s in Tadfield High Street. People do talk – hands on the headboard, if you please – You’re shaking, is it all right? You must say.”

_“Please.”_

“Since you ask nicely. Does that still sting a bit? Well, you _would_ keep wriggling... A few more pillows? There we are – all right, easy now, you’re so very snug – oh, lovely. No, don’t move just yet. I just want to know I’m here – All right, now slowly.”

* * *

““I believe Tracy would have already poured her first tot of sherry. I think we can allow ourselves."

The light was dropping, a mellow oblong on the blue duvet, a reflective blur on the mirror.

“I can use that app thingamajig to order in something from the Tun. I confess to not feeling ambitious. I’ll get the things for a Welsh rarebit on Saturday, if you'd like that.”

It was still only Wednesday. He expected this to last till Saturday. Remarkable.

“We’ll have the concert behind us. I’d be very grateful for your company.”

“Prob’ly already tired of me by then.”

“Dear, you really _must_ stop that, or I might have to tickle you. And then we’d spill sherry all over the bed.” A bit more seriously. “Really, I don’t think so. Shall I tell you why?’

“Don’t know me that well yet?”

“Well – perhaps I don’t but – you’ll call me a romantic, but I have a recurring dream as well. It’s not nearly so frightful as yours.”

The blunt fingertip outlining the muscles of his arms, tracing down each knobbly finger.

“It doesn’t come often, but it goes as far back as I can remember. I’m having a quarrel that seems to have been going on forever. One day I woke up and realized that it was Gabriel I was quarreling with. Though I’d had it since before he was born.”

Picking up his hand to brush lips over each fingertip. “After we interviewed the new Maestro at last summer’s Board meeting, they showed up in the dream standing next to him. Which just seems like one of those things that pops up in dreams, but you must admit it came true in quite spectacular fashion.”

“Tryin’ to forget about it.”

“Some things, alas, are burned onto the inner lids… That last time, I was setting out an argument that I can’t remember for the life of me, and there was someone else at my shoulder, saying _It’s all right, angel. We’re on our own side now_.” Fingers finally laced tight together. “I particularly recall your using the term _angel._ ”

Knuckles to lips. “So you see why I looked so astonished at first rehearsal. The more so because you did too.”

“Here I was thinkin’ it was ‘cos you fancied me.”

“My dear. That was the other astonishing thing.”

Glass empty, back down to face one another across the cloud-tumble of pillows.“What was all that about anyway? Gabriel and you gettin’ into it the other night.”

“Oh – more of the usual. It’s always tiresome.”

“Can tell me. Went to school for finance, ‘member.”

“Just nuisance paperwork. He has things for me to sign from time to time, just renewing arrangements mostly, but I want time to read it all. I’m no good with things like that, and he seemed in a great rush, and I can’t concentrate on anything else with the concert coming up. Something about relaxing the investment guidelines for the Trust, which are quite conservative, just like Grandfather. He’s told me before that times are changing but – what are you doing, dear?”

“Just don’t want to pad around your house starkers. Maybe you should put in that order, I’d like a bit on my stomach for this.”

“Whatever are you on about?”

“Where do you keep your papers?” Crowley said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am indebted to Laura Shapiro (laurashapiro), in her comments on [Inscriptions, or A Little Night Music](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22351453), for the phrase "velvet control." It exactly characterizes my concept of Aziraphale in a soft dom role and was just what I was looking for here so thanks, used it.
> 
> Still here? Share with a friend 'cos author is too danged introverted to be in chats and things. But do pay me a visit on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


	9. A Most Excellent And Secret Oath

"Oi, that’s not bad. Here, don’t want to get any on your couch. Just can’t do this kind of thing on an empty stomach. All right, have you got the original trust documents? And any addenda?”

“In a safe deposit box in Didcot. But I keep copies here.”

“Let me see them – ta, bit of light? And start up that computer of yours, it looks vintage. Probably take forever to load.”

“I always make myself a cup of tea.”

“You can look at the transactions online, right?”

“Yes, but I confess I never do. I can’t make head or tail of such things, and there’s never been any problem.”

It was what he’d suspected, and an old story. Gabriel had found ways to skim sums from the principal for greater and lesser periods of time, always putting the money back in, almost always with a little extra – a plaster for guilt, most likely. He’d gotten bolder in the past year or two, larger sums, more often; if you dug five years back, there was nothing of the sort. It had probably taken a long time for him to work up his nerve, and it had gotten addictive. Crowley knew about being addicted to risky things.

"I don’t think you’re going to like this,” he said finally. “Have you asked for any emergency disbursements? Unexpected expenses?"

"Of course not. As I said, I'm quite comfortable."

"Well, it looks as if he's labeled some transactions that way. Put the money back after. He’s been borrowing, and covering his tracks, and it’s going to catch up. I'll have to pull a few threads to get the whole picture, but something like day trading, I’d guess. Up till now just dribs and drabs, but if he’s at you to change something about the way it’s administered, I’d say he’s dug himself into a deeper hole this time. Maybe a note coming due, or investors to repay. I think any judge would grant a freezing order, but then you’ve got to find a trustee you can actually _trust.”_

“The terms are that the family votes on any new trustee. At this point, that’s Gabriel and his siblings. A couple of spouses.”

“Buggery. They could all be in it up to their collar stays. Angel, every penny of that’s _yours._ It’d be free and clear if your grandfather hadn’t been a stuffy old bigot. You’ve got to get control of it.”

“How ever? You know there’s only the one condition. I have to marry, or I never touch the principal. One could ask Miss Device, she's refreshingly unconventional, but it might seem a bit sudden -- ”

“Marry me,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale stared.

“Welcome to the twenty-first century, angel. Or did you have your headphones on the day the UK decided that a bloke could marry a bloke?”

“My dear. Less than twenty-four hours ago you were ready to bolt for the door. What brings on this metabolism?”

“It’s exactly because I've quit expecting anything to last. But marry me, no one's between you and what's yours any more. We deal with the rest as it comes.”

“That – ah, that was exactly not Grandfather’s intent – he didn’t care at all for the company I kept at Uni, he was always plain that he wished I’d find a nice young woman, start a family – ““

“When did he die?

“Ninety-three, I believe.”

“Never imagining the world we live in now. There’s not even anything in there about divorce” – he chucked the folder with the trust documents onto the table – “there’s nothing that says you have to marry a woman, and there’s nothing about children. Married. That’s it.”

A silence that went on a bit too long.

“Look, angel, I’m not gold-digging. Don’t need to. We’ll draw something up, I’ve got a solicitor for tricky situations – all in black and white, just like film stars. Separate finances, no contesting of a divorce motion from either side, but once you have a legal spouse the dead hand’s gone.”

“I thought _I_ was going a bit fast. We haven’t even dined together properly.”

Crowley grinned in spite of himself.

“Well – that.” Was that a _blush?_

“We’ll drive out to the registry office in the morning. That gives us thirty days to set up a proper pre-nup that protects us both, and we’ll make sure Gabriel knows that if he tries something clever, he will regret it for the rest of his lavender life. Call your solicitor before we leave.”

“I’m afraid I’ve used Gabriel’s for the last seven or eight years.”

“Then you’d better get another.”

“No. I trust you.”

“Don’t. I’ll have mine recommend someone near here who can file for the freeze order. I’ll say it’s a bit of an emergency.”

“You know, dear boy, you really are quite masterful yourself, in your own way.” The impish twinkle was back and God, he was starting to realize he’d do anything to be the cause of it. “I confess, as much as I’ve enjoyed cat-and-mouse with Gabriel in the past, this would be the _piece de resistance_. You've all but sold me on the notion.”

“It’s what I do.”

"And you?"

"My idea, ennit -- "

"I mean, I should like to think at least the hope of love is there -- oh, my dear, please don't -- come here, then. Let's have a kiss on that pretty serpent. You know, whenever I look at it, I'll think of how deliciously you squirm -- smile for me now... There. And this eye. And this one."

The sun had shifted a little by the time he spoke again.

“What would you like for a wedding gift? Something in white, perhaps. The colour's quite fetching on you.”

“Don’t 'spect a thing. Already given me.” The sentence stalled out in his throat: he couldn’t distil it into words. “Makin' sure you have what belongs to you. That’s all.”

“You really can’t prevent me from spoiling you with some of it.”

“Don’t even know my tastes yet.”

"Don't I?"

"Well. Except."

“Then we need to start getting better acquainted, dear. We have thirty days.”

* * *

Crowley left a message at the offices of Dagon and Associates before even getting out of bed the next morning. “Something for luck,” said Aziraphale, coming up behind him as he buttoned his shirt. Strong hands turned him, lifted away the silver tie, did up the top buttons Crowley never closed. A little echo of the sweet obedience of the day before loosened his limbs, slid his eyelids shut as he felt his collar flipped up, fingers snugging a neat bow over his Adam’s apple.

“I pride myself on good knot tying. You’ll see.”

Tartan wasn’t his style, but today, he’d take it.

“I should be ready by the time you've brought in the post and checked your messages. Shall we say nine? --You know, I’m quite giddy.”

The Lurking Twins waved as the Bentley rolled onto the gravel in front of Nasturtium Cottage. For a moment he hesitated, then unfolded his length from the driver’s door, deliberately straightened the tie, and smiled.

Hastur stared, for once speechless.

He lifted one hand in a slow, sardonic wave back, and turned to go in.

* * *

The day picked them up and ran: small office buildings; exasperated consultations with Siri in lay-bys; peeling notes and cards out of Crowley's still-damp wallet; seeing one another's signatures for the first time. It shouldn't have surprised Crowley that Aziraphale set aside the ballpoint offered at the registry office and withdrew an old-fashioned fountain pen from the depths of his coat, inscribing his name in a completely readable copperplate script as unlike Crowley's illegible tangle as humanly possible.

A pub lunch stretched into a two-hour conversation ("oh, we really must -- perhaps a honeymoon weekend in London, I'll see what's left of their season") and then a light-hearted quarrel, almost for the sake of saying they'd had one. More appointments, and finally another phone app order to the Tun (“another year or so and you might get the hang of that thing, angel”).

Crowley told his clients something personal had come up and he'd get back to them tomorrow.

Rehearsal was subdued. Dr. Zingarelli sang along with _God Save The Queen_ in a remarkably toneless voice; Crowley, from the corner of his eye, caught Gabriel gazing up at them as if it had been Tracy in finest fettle, not even appearing to notice when Hastur stretched out the final note with an especially lengthy and agile example of _filare la voce_ from his backside, spot on pitch. Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t converse, only exchanged _I’ve got a secret_ glances over the tops of their music stands.

The Puccini brought a spontaneous scatter of applause.

They made a point of leaving separately. Crowley, sweetly weary, settled on a retaining wall outside the auditorium entrance and pulled out a Player from his inside pocket, savouring the tang of the phosphor match, the coil of the smoke as he blew it out, as much as he did the first draw. Somewhere he’d seen that initial rush of nicotine to the brain described as _ersatz_ divinity. If it was what he could get, he’d take it.

The Them – all of them – straggled from the auditorium door. Adam and Brian must have been in the scatter of listeners in the seats.

“Hey, you lot,” he called.

“Hi, Mr. Crowley. What’re you doing out here?”

“Bein' a bad role model. What about you?”

“We’re walking Wensley home,” said Adam. “Greasy Johnson’s lot’ve been ganging up on him lately. The Them look after each other.”

“They tried to get my bassoon case and called me a faggot,” said the bespectacled boy glumly. “‘Cos of hearing that’s what it’s called. In the sheet music.”

Crowley took a thoughtful pull, blew the smoke away from them. “And that’s meant to be an insult then, is it?”

“Greasy thinks so.”

“Well he’s a right little pillock, isn’t he?”

“Gender is a construct anyway,” said Pepper.

Brian plunked down on the wall beside Crowley. “Can I try one of those?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Bad for you.”

“Why d'ye do it then?”

“I do a lot’ve things that’re bad for me,” said Crowley, taking another pull.

“You should stop doing them then,” said Pepper.

“You know, I’m trying to.” 

“Dr. Lizard said _you_ were too,” said Brian with a faint tone of awe, as if he might be sitting next to a celebrity.

“Was what?’

“A f – “ At the last moment Brian remembered that at least _someone_ considered it an insult.

Crowley blew smoke philosophically. “It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

“Well he didn’t exactly _say_ that,” clarified Wensley. “He said Mr. Fell’s your boyfriend now."

“And we like _him_ ,” said Pepper. “So if you are, you’d better be nice to him.”

“You going to get married then?” inquired Wensley.

Crowley’s reflexive inhale took the Player down to the butt. He sized up the candid little bespectacled face, glanced around to his companions. “Keep a secret?”

Unexpectedly, four hands were stacked one on top of the other just at his eye level, the other three huddling around the seated Brian.

“ _By our linked hands we swear,”_ they intoned as one, Adam’s lower, more mature voice prevailing _, “that what is spoken here will never be revealed.”_

“You too,” said Adam. Crowley stubbed out the cigarette, and set his hand on top of the stack.

"It is a solemn oath of the Them,” Adam explained.

“All right then,” said Crowley. “We are.”

“Marriage is just an obsolete patriarchal institution,” said Pepper.

“A little bit more, in this case.”

“You really?” said Wensley. Crowley turned his thumb up.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Give you a ride home, all’ve you. Then if this Johnson prat’s hanging about, he’ll see you’ve got protection. Also that you ride in style. C’m’on, this way.”

“Wowwww,” said Brian.

* * *

Crowley took it slow, actually making a tour of the village so that the kids could admire the car – taking in the old-fashioned dashboard, the leather bench seats, the crank handles on the windows. He learned that Pepper had been badgering her teachers to invite a speaker from the Peace Pledge Union; that Brian wanted to be a chef for the World Central Kitchen; that Wensley did extra credit work for Dr. Lizard’s class because he was interested in the problem of persistent chemicals in the environment, a discourse that largely went over Crowley’s head. He tried to recall when he’d spent this much time talking to anyone of Adam’s age, even when he was that age himself. He couldn’t.

They joined hands palm down again as he dropped each one off, just as they had at the oath of secrecy.

“Not sure what I want to do yet,” said Adam. “Not sure I ever want t’even leave Tadfield. I want people to be free, that’s all I’m sure about. Figure it out.”

“Good place to start.”

“Lot’ve folks not’s lucky as me. I know that.”

The door of the cottage Adam had pointed out opened, warm light from inside silhouetting a balding male figure, pipe in hand.

“The Youngs are your Mum and Dad?”

“Adam Young. Didn’t I say?”

“Didn’t remember if you did.”

Crowley cut the engine and got out. “Anthony Crowley,” he said, extending a hand. “Never properly met. Thought I’d deliver Adam and his friends home safe from the rehearsal, it was late.” His eyes met Adam’s briefly: _Up to you what you tell your Dad about the bullies, mate. What is spoken here will never be revealed._

“Ah, good of you. Though I must say that Tadfield’s very safe.”

“I’m getting that.”

“Remarkable car. I’d seen it, been meaning to ask if I could have a look. Bit’ve a thing for cars, myself.”

“Maybe I could tempt you over on Saturday? I heard Mrs. Young likes to bake with the apples on my tree. They’re ripe.”

“Capital. In with you, Adam.”

“In a mo’, Dad.”

Adam extended his hand, palm down.

“You are now an honorary one of the Them,” he said to Crowley. “One for all and all for one.”

Crowley laid his hand on top of Adam's and gravely repeated the classic motto.

“If you take the path that goes left off the Upper Tadfield Road and step over the broken barrier in the Hogback Wood, you get to our old clubhouse. It’s a good quiet place to have a think. I still go there sometimes.”

“I’ll remember it.”

“ ‘Night then. Thanks for the ride.”

“Ah – Adam? If this Johnson oik has another go at Wensley ‘bout his bassoon?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell him it’s somethin’ even cooler than a faggot. It’s a farting bedpost.”

* * *

A last text exchange before bed.

_Lizard put the Bicycle Telegraph onto us. Don’t worry, they won't say anything._

_Why ever not?_

_The Most Excellent And Secret Oath Of The Them, I think._

_Ah. I see._

_I'm on notice to treat you well. You might be stuck with me._

_Spiffing._

_Sleep well, angel._

_You too, dear._

At first it was the same dream: the van Gogh stars, the scorching pressure of re-entry. Then his blackened wings snapped out hugely, like parasails, and he felt one pair of small hands after another grappling him by the arms-- whether to catch themselves and share his slowing descent, or to pull him to safety, he couldn't quite tell. The light was already pouring in when he blinked awake on a final sense of soft landing.

He stood at the sill, looking down at the dusty russet of the apples weighing down their branches in the back garden.

“Welcome to Tadfield,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Filare la voce_ is the industry term for a vocal tone that crescendos or diminishes on a lengthy sustained note. Hastur has been practicing, or has the innate talents of [Le Petomane.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gym81fY460&t=215s) (A nice example here at 13:26 - 15:54, because the author is indeed an eleven-year-old boy at heart.)
> 
> Come be juvenile witn me on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


	10. Hustle Your Horse And Don't Say Die

“You’ll have to be wanded again if you go out, sir.”

“Wouldn’t deprive you of the pleasure.”

“Excuse me?”

“ ‘S’fine.”

The Ministry’s earpiece spooks were making an effort to be inconspicuous, which meant they stood out like a casualty ward’s worth of sore thumbs. Crowley had already gotten a sour look for spread-eagling himself in the doorway to be metal-checked on hIs way into the lobby, head thrown back in an overdramatic posture of martyrdom (“that pose does give me ideas, you know, dear,” Aziraphale whispered aside as he collected his instrument case). The formal clothes still fit pretty well, though when he raised his arms the jacket was a bit snug in the shoulders. Hoe, shovel. He’d see about some tailoring.

They’d run through the worst stumbling blocks and the National Anthem with the chorus, leaving bags of time to slip out for the smoke he’d been promising himself all day. He _had_ told Pepper he was trying to stop things that were bad for him. Well, make haste slowly.

Hastur, spectacularly out of place in tie and tails, was leaning against the concealing angle of masonry by the delivery platform – smoking a Gauloise down to the butt, next to a round-shouldered boy in similar formal wear. Crowley suspected he’d bummed one off of Froggy. He looked green, clearly new at this.

“Shouldn’t start,” said Crowley.

“You my Nanny or something?” His hair was in his eyes, and he had a pretty good case of acne, eerily like a young Hastur.

“Guess not.” said Crowley. “Figure we’re gonna blow it?”

“Not for lack’ve tryin’,” said Hastur.

It was awkward with the kid there. “Look, other mornin’ – “

“Ah, forget it. Me’n Lizard, get a bit carried away windin’ folk up sometimes.”

He took the leap. “You two been together long?”

“Just mates. Sometimes that’s most important thing you can have, ‘s’a mate.”

“I don’t have any mates,” said the kid.

“Could get a dog,” Hastur suggested.

“They won’t let me have one. Said it’d get the house dirty.”

“Boy needs to get dirty. You could come round my place ‘n’ dig earthworms.”

“Yeah, right,” said the kid, shoved his fists into the pockets of his trousers – he was already outgrowing them, ankles sticking out – and mooched off.

“What’s he play?” asked Crowley.

“Thought you knew ‘m.”

“Never seen him.”

One of the spooks at the auditorium entrance was occupied with his earpiece and let the other wand them both down.

“No, just let them start. Minister’s direct instructions. This is the third time, I’m sick’ve babysitting the little prick.”

Brief silence.

“Yeah, well, where’s he gonna go? We’re in the middle’ve Bumshag, Oxfordshire.”

Clearly he and Hastur consulted the same gazetteer.

“Carries the bloody mobile, doesn’t he, can’t get him off it – what d’ye mean, no signal? Guess he figured it out since last time. He was mine, I’d beat his arse till it glowed.”

He couldn’t have said why he did it. Something about the pimply kid made him feel mutinous and protective. He didn’t have a Them, or even a dog. He reminded Crowley of someone he’d known at Secondary, who hung out against the fence around the playing field, smoking Players because it made you look cool, only to find he couldn’t handle more than one a day because he needed the wind for his flute.

“Just a minute – thought of something – “

“If you go back out you’ll have to be – “

“Yeah, your lucky night, ennit?” Crowley broke into a jog-trot around the haphazardly built-on library wing, and ran right into Adam and Brian, dressed in already-too-small suits, wet-combed hair rebelling.

“One for all and all for one,” he hissed. “Lookin’ for a kid about your age. Minister’s son, bloody belongs in there. He goes missin' in Tadfield, it'll be your mum down with migraine for a week. Seen him?"

"What's he look like?"

"Spots, greasy hair, 'bout this long. Went that way.”

“On it,” said Adam. Crowley went the other way. The slouching silhouette was just visible in the shadows around the half-lit football pitch, hands still jammed into pockets, looking at a tree as if he’d never seen one before.

“Oi! Kid!”

“My name’s not Kid.”

Crowley slowed. “What is it then?”

“Warlock. _Ohsopleasedtomeetyouandthisisourson_ Warlock Dowling.”

“Warlock, come on back in with me.”

“You my Nanny?” he said again, mulishly.

“Looks like you need one.”

“Not going.”

“Why not?”

“Done with these. Another two hours of rumpty-tumpty music or boring pantos. And then cucumber sandwiches and Dad banging on about Art.”

“It’s me or those gits with earpieces.”

“Them?” said the kid, snapping his head to the side to look over Crowley’s shoulder. When Crowley looked back he’d taken off running. He was surprisingly fast.

“Oi! Stop!”

Maybe it was the Players, or just not being thirteen. He’d gotten a dozen steps before a beefy hand came down on his shoulder. _They_ were in pretty good condition.

“Sir, I’ll have to ask you to come with me.”

Crowley put up his hands.

“Fine. Just remember it means the National Anthem without a descant.”

* * *

“Of course I know him, that’s Mister Crowley, first flute. You can see the empty seat up there on the right of the stage.”

The double doors to the auditorium were ajar, and the atonal composition that was an orchestra tuning up muffled the conversation just outside. An extensive array of baked goods on large glass trays, covered in cling wrap and flanked by capacious urns, occupied a trio of refectory tables nearby. One of the black-suited men had already gotten into the lemon drizzle.

"Eric, I'm sure it's not necessary to _badger_ Mrs. -- " The Minister appeared to be checking his phone. " - Young. Harriet and I have been through this with him before -- "

“I have to tell you _he_ was acting very suspiciously -- ”

“I won’t hear a word of it. Mister Crowley’s been an absolute lifesaver since he joined – “

He had?

“ – coaching the weaker players, playing in the chamber group – “

“Known him a while then?”

“Only since August, he just moved here, but he’s engaged to Mr. Fell – “

Crowley tried not to levitate.

“ _Not on the grounds, we covered everything.”_ A faint tinny voice echoed from the nearest earpiece.

“ – and _he’s_ practically the Mayor of Tadfield – “

“Well, perhaps we need to get _him_ out here – “

The auditorium went silent. So did Mrs. Young. In the sudden hush they could hear high boyish voices from the top of the nearby stairwell, and then, in a succession of split seconds, three things happened: a syncopated series of loud reports issued from overhead; the security team tackled Crowley, Deirdre Young, and the Minister himself to the polished floor with the practiced reflexes of professionals; and the Tadfield Friends Of Music Society, deafened to the commotion outside by a crescendoing timpani roll and the bustle of the audience rising, launched into the stately Jeremy Corcoran orchestration of _God Save The Queen._

* * *

“ – we didn’t know he’d got hold of any – “

“ – we sent him up in the dumbwaiter, it was the only way we could talk him into coming back inside – “

" -- the one way in those secret agent blokes didn't think of -- "

" -- he thought it was a gas --"

" -- it's a _metal,_ Brian --- "

“ –- s’pose I shouldn’t have told him how Dr. Lizard blew it up in class – “

" -- he's always careless about leaving things out-- "

“ – or where the bogs were – “

The earpiece team was furiously wanding everyone again, instrumentalists first, letting them off the footie pitch one by one. The Greater Tadfield Emergency Department, which consisted of one red-and-lime-checkered engine and a small passenger sedan, seemed to be vacating the scene. Warlock's slightly whiny voice cut across the general hubbub.

“ – if there'd been a bigger piece it would have _really_ blown up – “

“ – you are not coming with us on any more of these trips – “

“ – aw, Mum, it’s just getting good – “

Crowley worked his way closer to the small huddle where the Them were debriefing.

“ _Adam! I thought there was an oath! You told your mum?”_

 _“That was Greasy Johnson – some of his mates must’ve been hanging about after all, ‘n’ he told_ his _mum, and_ she _told Mr. Tyler, and he told my mum – “_

“My dear. Have you become the Pied Piper of Tadfield?”

“Got me, angel.”

“Yes, I believe I do.”

Deirdre Young was having hysterics in, of all places, the tailcoated arms of Dr. Zingarelli, who kept patting her between the shoulderblades with the hand that wasn’t holding the baton.

“Mrs. Young. _Dottore.”_

“Oh, dear, Minister, I’m so embarrassed – “

“And I apologize for my son. Who apparently has not been receiving enough attention at home. Perhaps we can have a conversation about raising boys?”

“Ah – I – “

“In good time, that is. Now Eric here wants to shut everything down, but the fire brigade seems to think all is well, Harriet has our young man by the ear, and _faint heart never won fair lady,_ as Mr. Gilbert himself reminds us. I came here to hear a concert, and the evening is still young. Shall we ?”

" _Pronto quando vuoi_ ," said Dr. Zingarelli.

"Ah -- quite," said the Minister. "Lead the way, then."

Crowley spotted Newt gazing after him, with a determined expression, silently mouthing _faint heart never won fair lady._

 _"_ Hustle your horse and don't say die," the Minister sang obliviously, more or less on pitch.

"Rumpty tumpty tum," grumbled Warlock.

* * *

“…all your efforts, and especially your fortitude in carrying on tonight…”

“Didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier. We’re rumbled after all.”

Aziraphale reached in his waistcoat pocket and solemnly withdrew an antique-looking watch on a fob.

“Tadfield is running several hours ahead of its usual schedule. Well, perhaps we shall just have to seize the moment. Better for Gabriel to hear it from us.”

The performance had been surprisingly successful, possibly because everyone’s adrenaline was already used up. The first clarinets had only once emitted the shrill squeak of an overblown single reed, Newt stayed on pitch in the Wagner, and the Minister could be seen swaying slightly during the _Iolanthe,_ eyes closed, conducting in his seat with both forefingers. The house came down when in the final number -- the Strauss medley -- he rose, gave his hand to Mrs. Dowling, and whirled her briefly around the back of the auditorium, somewhat to the annoyance of Eric and his team.

Inevitably, he had _remarks._

“…everything that makes England the jewel it still is… many cultures, one nation… “

Aziraphale startled Crowley by stealing a hand into his. Somewhere deep in his cortex, several programs went offline.

“…though I have to say, I’ll never tire of a good old-fashioned Savoy opera where everything works out and everyone gets married at the end. It’s the most English thing there is. Except, my dear villagers of” [downward glance at notes] “Tadfield, for _you_."

The kind of applause that says the _remarks_ have concluded at just the right time. Warlock could be seen fishing a piece of lemon cake off the corner of one table.

“And now, without ado, to the lovely offerings of the Beneficial Society – “ A decidedly louder wave of applause crested, faded.

“Ahem.”

Aziraphale hadn’t let go.

“If I may make so bold, Minister? Anent the weddings at the end, and so on? Aziraphale Fell -- I sit on the Board with Mrs. Young.”

“And this is – “

“You’ll have already met Mr. Crowley. A very recent arrival to our village, but you know, sometimes the lightning strikes. I think this is the moment to let all our friends assembled know that we’re going to be married.”

The applause dwarfed the Minister's to an embarrassing degree, and included a squeal on a perfect high C and the tintinnabulation of R. P. Tyler's triangle. It's possible that some citizens of Tadfield shared the views of Fell's grandfather, because the ovation wasn't universal until a few elbows dug into a few ribs; then again, when Dr. Liguri's elbow connected, Hastur merely sighed visibly, reached into an inner pocket of his incongruous formal jacket, and handed over a wad of notes.

“It’s all quite sudden, absolutely no exact plans, but I really couldn’t wait another day to share our delight. _Close your mouth, darling, you look like a deer in the headlights.”_

“Oh, I hope you’ll be as happy as Thaddeus and I have – “

Warlock was just visible jabbing a forefinger into his open mouth, before resuming his attack on the lemon cake. A strong scent of patchouli incense enveloped Crowley, followed by what felt like an attempt at artificial respiration.

“Oh, I knew it! It was _right there_ in the cards I read last night -- well, the exact interpretation was _the plea of love finds assent_ – “

“Anathema?”

Tadfield’s resident witch released Crowley’s protesting rib cage just in time to turn and see the watery-eyed, cowlicked face of Newton Pulsifer gazing up at her from waist level. He had managed to plant his knee in the one coffee spill that had occurred so far that evening.

“Anathema, will you – “

Anathema’s eyes widened until they seemed to fill the entire lenses of her glasses. There was a lot to fill.

“ – ah – go out with me?” He’d caught her hand while still holding a jam tart, which now shed a graceful trail of crumbs and goo over his coatsleeve..

“Uh … yeah? Sure.”

“Got a book for you,” Crowley said under his breath as Newt clambered to his feet.. “Help with the chattin’ up.”

It seemed politic to withdraw before the young man actually passed out. Crowley turned and found himself facing the blazing violet eyes of Gabriel Archer.

 _“What the hell are you two playing at?”_ he hissed.

“Your blessing is all the wedding gift we could require,” said Aziraphale with aplomb.

“ _This is your doing, isn’t it? Laugh while you can, because I am going to sue those skinny jeans off you, along with every other article of clothing that you own – “_

“Didn’t know I was your type, squire.”

“You’re not.” The teeth looked even whiter when he snarled.

“Good thing. What are you going to sue me for?‘

“Taking advantage of my _impressionable_ cousin – “

“Sounds to me like you’re the one’s done that, mate – “

Crowley reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.

“You should have an International Express letter already, but here's the copy I brought along for light readin'. First thing we did after givin’ our notice. This is from your _impressionable_ cousin’s solicitor – “

“Who’s mine.”

“Not any more. _And_ I have every reason to expect a judge'll freeze the assets in _my fiance’s_ trust colder than Fossil Bluff. _And_ \-- smile, squire, people're lookin' -- we’ll be drawin’ up papers that keep anyone else's hands off it. Yours or mine. _And_ I’m checkin' in on that account every day -- like this, let people think you're congratulatin' us -- imagine you're gettin' swished with a baton or something -- and if _one penny moves_ before the order drops you'll be lookin' at something a lot worse than a lawsuit."

Crowley tucked the folded letter into Gabriel’s jacket pocket and gave it a pat.

"Meaning a proper old English inheritance scandal, just the thing you need to really assimilate. Should take Tadfield three days, tops." He punctuated the sentence with a thousand-watt smile, leaned in to kiss the air an inch from Gabriel's cheek, and pumped his hand again, speaking close to his ear.

"I've read all the receipts. Bs.C., Finance and Banking, Birmingham '03.”

Crowley switched to the other cheek, for good measure.

"Gotta say, feels good finally usin' it to look after someone besides myself. Might grow on me. You should try it."

Gabriel reclaimed his hand, looked as if he were about to wipe it off on his scarf, didn't.

“Also, you were flat in the Wagner.”

“Signor Fell, Signor Cr- _ow_ -ley, all the joy. _Gabrielluccio,_ you must come, the Minister asked _– “_

They didn't actually lead him by the scarf. Not quite.

“My dear. I must say that was quite forceful.”

“Finally got somethin’ to be forceful about, don’t I?”

"It makes me that much more eager to - hm -- take charge of you as soon as humanly possible."

Crowley found himself trying not to levitate again.

"I promise you're going to like it," Aziraphale added in an almost inaudible purr.

"Ngk," managed Crowley.

“Oh, Mr. Fell – it really is like a fairy tale – oh, sorry, I mean – “

“Dear lady. Perhaps you’ll sing for us, when we do it properly. I’m afraid it’ll be all business, in the short term.”

“Oh, it puts me all aflutter – “

“Congratulations, laddies. Festive dram?”

“Ah – no thanks. School grounds.”

“What about ye, Jezebel?”

“Don’t mind if I do – “

“Get ye anythin’ else?”

“Oh, Mr. Shadwell. What about breakfast?"

"Ach, ye forward hussy - "

"I love kippers.”

“I think this is our cue to retire,” murmured Aziraphale.

* * *

“G’night, Mr. Crowley.”

“G’night, Mr. Fell.”

“We saw you trying to sneak out.”

There was really no way to _sneak_ out of the assembled company of Greater Tadfield’s Friends Of Music and the Friends’ friends, but they'd finally edged their way through a gauntlet of well-wishes, some of them from people Crowley was fairly sure he'd actually met.

Warlock had joined the company of the Them, who were clustered near the lobby doors under the sharp gaze of Mrs. Young and Eric. He gave Crowley a tentative wave.

“Mr. Dowling said Warlock can stay with us until Sunday if Eric comes along,” said Adam. “The next show he's meant to see's only just up in Oxford.”

“I gather the Savoy group there is doing something _innovative_ ,” explained Mrs. Young.

“ _Bor_ -ing _,”_ said Warlock. “Rumpty tumpty tumpty.”

“Can we come with my mum and dad to pick apples?” said Adam.

“Let’s ask your dad. Arthur seems to think they should both be grounded,” asided Mrs. Young. “Since there’ll be someone to watch them.”

“I like apples,” said Eric.

“Next time,” they could hear Warlock saying sulkily as they retreated, “I’m going to _flush.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [right advice has been staring Newt in the face](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1u1sABykuw&list=OLAK5uy_kOla6oOL79o_rVyTf_Zj0jm7_2sSqhy10&index=24) all through rehearsals, if he'd only listened to the entire operetta.
> 
> Never, never, never,  
> Faint heart never won fair lady!  
> Every journey has an end--  
> When at the worst affairs will mend--  
> Dark the dawn when day is nigh--  
> Hustle your horse and don't say die!
> 
> Jeremy Corcoran is a prolific arranger for curious combinations of instruments (think the processional theme from Holst's "Jupiter" for saxophone trio); his ["God Save The Queen"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ntiRlEUV2w&list=UUNyLnPfF6wP_rdGWaJukOlw&index=20) is simple enough for even Tadfield's most junior musicians and changes key part way through, so audience members with limited vocal ranges can all play. R. P. Tyler gets to let it rip at the end. 
> 
> Yes, I researched what happens when you throw a chunk of sodium in the commode, thanks to people with too much time on their hands and YouTube accounts. Unflushed, the vapors boil up briefly before a larger or smaller fireflash and several reports that sound remarkably like gunshots, but the porcelain survives. Flushed... well, you need a long pole for that. 
> 
> Almost to the end with a sweet envoi! If you've enjoyed, pass it around and come tune up with me on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


	11. Apple Tart (Envoi)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW ;p for marrying people with obvious issues on short acquaintance, but then, this is fic.
> 
> More illegal tense and person switching. Sorry not sorry

“Nice and snug? Nothing hurts?” A little rummaging, just out of sight. “Where ever did I put that? Oh – you really are a vision spread out that way, you know. Like Vitruvian Man, only with the correct number of limbs.”

Shifting of the mattress, a last tug at one wrist, followed by a lingering fingerstroke over the palm. He really did mean it about the knot tying.

“You can’t think how I’ve imagined what it would be to see you like this. It excites you, doesn’t it? Not being able to move a muscle… Shall I show you what it’s done to me?”

It’s still early. You’ll wake up in plenty of time tomorrow. Even if he spins this out. You’d like that.

“I must admit I’d never thought of someone choosing _Puccini_ for a safeword.” He’s going to turn this chat into a gentle torment of suspense. That’s fine. “I hope never to make you need it. But perhaps, to often think you might.” Checking every knot one more time.

“It’s a particular responsibility. Like picking up the baton. I don’t take it lightly… Oh, I can tell you want to touch.”

 _God,_ you do.

“Another time, dear. Just now, you’re my instrument. And I’m going to play.”

* * *

And so, dear readers, we near the the end of this story, and leave everyone as they set forth on many more. It is not for this narrative to describe in detail all the times Crowley sulked, found ways to be exasperating, or insisted a (mostly) patient Aziraphale was wearying of him ("dear, if you continue to be absurd, I shall have to tell Pepper"); or how one day he gave up and realized he was loved; or the public ceremony not long afterward, which they would always count as their real anniversary. Tracy rendered _Voi, che sapete_ in her most limpid voice; it is neither confirmed nor disproven that, when the party grew rowdy later, she joined Hastur and Dr. Liguri in _The Hedgehog Song_ to the accompaniment of Shadwell's euphonium.

Pepper's eventual arrest for defacing government property at a protest in London -- ostensibly, the Them had traveled down to visit Warlock -- would be smoothed over by Minister Dowling. It would remain unclear who supplied the paint bags.

Gemma and Lucinda’s hesitant senior-year romance will have to wait for another time, as will the matter of the surcharges for breakage demanded by the rental in Sardinia where Gabriel and the Maestro took their winter holiday. If the Them taught Newt how to nick a peach from the Market stalls the following summer, the tale will have to be told elsewhere, as will that of his handfasting to Anathema, when he sneezed as soon as she approached with her bouquet of symbolic blooms and had to use his inhaler before the ceremony could proceed.

For now, we return to the day after the Autumn Concert: a plaid blanket in the back garden, a plate of Mrs. Young’s fresh scones, a bottle of champagne. It was, after all, a Saturday. Adolescent voices floated over the quiet conversation on the blanket, crossing the sounds of industry from the kitchen door.

“His name’s Dog. Saves a lot of trouble.”

“I’m tellin’ my Dad I want one just like him.” An onlooker could be forgiven for imagining the apple tree had spoken.

“Look, Warlock’s almost all the way to the top.” Aziraphale lifted his half-empty flute, as if to salute what might have been the boy's first tree climb.

An apple shook off a lower branch, lightly beaning Eric, who sat with his back resting against the trunk. He picked it up and, philosophically, took a bite.

“Dr. Lizard said that’s how gravity was discovered.”

 _“Adam, bring that basket in here.”_ Mrs. Young had put the rest of the Them to work inside.

“Need to get this lot workin’ on the garden plot. If I marry the squire I get tenant farmers and that, right?”

“Well, I suppose that like any self-respecting gentry, we can manage two manorial estates."

“Could let this for a holiday cottage, if anyone can ever see to the drains.”

“My dear. Already all in? I've been half expecting you to start divorce proceedings the day after the ceremony.”

Crowley lifted his chin a bit pugnaciously. “Shan’t.”

The young people seemed occupied enough that a discreet kiss was permissible.

“Well, we’ll take it one day at a time, then. You know I have enough that you wouldn’t need to work that job any more if you prefer. I say this not to tempt you.”

“Aaaah, then I’d just be the squire’s wife. Have to compete with Deirdre there makin’ apple tarts. Not my area.”

“I’m afraid that in the eyes of Tadfield, you already are. People here can be surprisingly modern, but some things never change.”

“And no one’ll blink an eye if the squire and his wife go in for a bit’ve tyin’ up?”

“Dear, there are some things that even Tadfield doesn’t consider its business. Besides, now they have Gabriel and the Doctor to gossip about. I gather they were seen together toward the end of this morning’s market, which we unaccountably missed.”

“Likes gettin’ things thrown at him, not gonna judge.”

A light, decorous touch of hands. “I can only be happy you prefer my baton technique.”

_“Mr. Crowley! Don’t you have a proper stock pot?”_

“Squire’s wife,” sighed Crowley, rising glass in hand.

“ _And a sharpener! Is this your only paring knife? Do give us a hand, Arthur'll be here any minute and then I know I won't get a thing out've either one of you.”_

Aziraphale twinkled up at him.

“Welcome to Tadfield,” he said.

_finis_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Versions of the Hedgehog Song can be found [here ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijaYYCmY4A8)and [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUnkBX8Db80) Tracy and Nanny Ogg would understand one another.
> 
> Many thanks to the wonderful readers who commented on each and every chapter and made me care about making each one the best it could be.
> 
> If you're still here, thank you! If you liked it, pass it on to a friend and sing rude songs to me on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech.


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